Oil reserve challenged in House

The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming met to discuss opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to alleviate Americans’ struggle with high gas prices. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) told the committee that average Americans will pay $2,370 per year on gas at current rates and said the White House for opposing measures that would bring immediate relief at the pump. He said the Reserve is 97 percent full, the most it has ever been, with 706 million barrels of oil.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) stated that she does not support releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She said the Reserve is intended to respond to national emergencies when oil supplies are severed, nothing that a supply cut has not occurred. James May, president of the Air Transport Association, said the price of gas is an emergency for the families of 32,000 airline employees who have lost jobs due to tighter airline budgets. Markey said Democrats in Congress desire to help lower the cost of gas in ten to twenty days, contrasting this with Republican’s calls for more drilling, an avenue he said would take ten to twenty years. Blackburn said Democrats have failed to develop a rational energy policy.

Kyle Simpson, policy director of Brownstein, said an announcement from the White House that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was being opened would instantly lower prices, citing past actions taken by President George H.W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, and President George W. Bush. Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress advocated releasing a portion of the Reserve to the market incrementally. He said if prices do not to drop upon release, the failed strategy would demonstrate how “useless” is the Reserve is. According to Romm, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s development stemmed from oil shortages caused by international conflict, saying that the modern globalized economy makes the risk of sudden oil shortages unlikely. Speaking passionately into his microphone, Romm stated that the current threat to the oil market is high prices, questioning the Reserve’s purpose if current prices do not qualify for the release of oil.