Posted by
Locutisprime on Tuesday, July 08, 2008 11:33:48 PM
Pelosi Asks Bush to Draw From Petroleum Reserve to Combat Surge in Oil Prices
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi asked President Bush on Tuesday to draw down a portion of the
country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a way to reduce crude prices
and help motorists who are suffering from the rising cost of gasoline.
The
House Republican leadership responded to Pelosi's proposal by noting
that she was supporting a supply increase — something the Republicans
have rallied behind in the form of increased offshore drilling, which
the Democrats oppose.
Pelosi's proposal,
contained in a letter to President Bush, comes as Americans continue to
face average unleaded gas prices over $4 a gallon. The increases have
followed a surge in the price of crude oil on world markets, though
crude eased $5 on Tuesday to close at $136 a barrel for the day.
"The
severe energy price crisis facing millions of Americans compels strong
presidential action to assist consumers and strengthen the economy,"
Pelosi said in her letter, which asked Bush to "draw down a small
portion" of the country's oil reserve.
Pelosi
cited historical examples of such moves in times of uncertainty, from
the elder President Bush's use of some of the reserve's oil leading up
to the first Gulf war to a similar measure by President Clinton in 2000
to address the threat of a home-heating oil crisis.
Once again, all that the liberal left has to offer is more lip service. Nancy Pelosi's solution is for us to dip into the strategic reserve? This from the same woman that on the heals of hurricane Katrina and $3.50 a gallon gas....promised us that the democrats could do it better in 2006. Elect them to congress and they would get a handle on the gasoline prices.
If anything has changed for the better since then, I am certainly unaware of it. And it wasn't six weeks ago, when Senator Charles Shumer (D-NY) was telling us that it was foolish to drill in ANWAR. Anything that we gained by drilling would take ten years to come on line and would maybe account for a once cent per gallon reduction in price at the pump according to Chucky.
Then two weeks later when President Bush went to Saudi Arabia and attempted to talk the Saudi's into increasing production for the summer? Shumer lambasted him for failing in the attempt and then quickly added that if the Saudi's would just give us a million more barrels a day? The price of gas would drop immediately by forty to fifty cents per gallon at the pump. Yet two weeks earlier? That same million barrels a day that we could have been be getting out of ANWAR, would only result in a penny a gallon savings.
These are the plans and schemes of the democrats. Don't drill, but dip into the strategic reserve. And how long will that last Ms. Pelosi? And what happens when we go to replace it? How much will the cost per barrel be to put back what you siphoned off? And what if we actually need that oil for a "strategic" purposes?
More empty talk, shallow promises and partisan solutions, that don't amount to more than a warm bukect of spit.