Sen. Levin, D-Mich.: Oil in Reserve Kept Prices High

[Nambe]

Associated Press

The Bush administration's decision to buy oil for the government's emergency reserve is contributing to tight supplies and higher energy prices, some economists and congressional Democrats contend. ---

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., urged Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Tuesday to immediately suspend the oil shipments into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "until the price of oil falls from its current high levels and the private sector inventories increase."

"This administration's actions to fill the SPR regardless of the price of oil or the amount of oil available to the commercial sector is a major reason for these high (crude) prices," Levin, the ranking member of the Senate Governmental Affairs investigations subcommittee, wrote Abraham. ---

[Rose Siding]

1. Bush is Ken Lay?

But what's the motive? This stuff gets to hard for me to understand. I'm energy-market-hi-jinx impaired.

[TacticalPeek]

3. Motive? Follow the money.

The higher the price of oil, the more money in the pockets of his contributors. Simple payback and warchest-building for '04. When he reachs the point of too much to even spend, it goes to help them keep the Congress. Keeping the oil price high has become more important since their Iraq scheme blew up in their face.

[Democat]

2. More price fixing by the Bush admin?

He's got to make as much money as possible for the people who will finance him in the 2004 election.