Kerry pushes oil reserve back to political front burner in dispute over ga

[Judi Lynn]

Kerry pushes oil reserve back to political front burner in dispute over gas prices.


By H. JOSEF HEBERT
The Associated Press
3/30/04 4:56 PM


WASHINGTON (AP) -- When gasoline prices soar, talk of using America's emergency oil reserve is never far behind, especially in an election year.

Democrat John Kerry pressed the issue Tuesday when he chastised President Bush for pumping millions of barrels of oil into the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a time when commercial oil supplies are tight and gasoline prices are surging to record highs.

Experts are divided on whether the reserve's oil should be used to tame prices or even whether its oil would have much of an impact on world markets. The reserve is designed to provide an emergency flow of crude should supplies be cut off and not to manipulate prices, many energy analysts argue.

While Kerry did not suggest the government release some of the 650 million barrels held on salt domes on the Gulf coast, he said it made no sense to keep diverting oil into the reserve when economists cite tight commercial inventories as one reason for the high energy prices.
(snip/...)

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[Kolesar]

1. "pumping millions of barrels of oil into the government's S.P.R."

Maybe Bush is planning on knocking off another foreign country

[peachy]

2. But he doesn't have the courage

to say that this is only the beginning of the end of cheap oil. He doesn't have the courage to call for an all out national program to end our addiction to the slippery black stuff before its too late.

And just below the surface lays the fact that the oil market is being manipulated by corporate interests in much the same way that Enron manipulated the energy market.

But hey don't worry before we run out of oil we'll discover the secret of magic fairy dust and we'll spread it over our food crops and they will magically fly to our tables without the petrolium run tractors and fertilizers and transportation that they overwelmingly require now.

[Moderator]

3. Locking

Duplicate story - go here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=452268