Strategic oil reserve, should we use it to drop prices?

[Lancer]

Nancy Peloci seems to think so.

No link, sorry. Watched her on CNN.

[Geronimo]

only if we don't care about developing alternative fuel sources (short term reductions in crude oil prices further delay the incentive to invest in them) and only if we like using short term fixes that cost exactly as much as they save for long term problems.

Personally? no.

[SlowwHand]

House leader Pelosi asks Bush to release reserve oil - Jul. 8, 2008Jul 8, 2008 ... US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday urged President Bush to release crude oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat ...
money.cnn.com/2008/07/08/news/pelosi_oil/ - 70k - Cached - Similar pages

[Jon Miller]

is that very strategic?

JM

[Lancer]

Thanks Sloww.

My understanding is that the petrolium reserve is there in case FEMA needs it for natural disaster or the nation needs it to fight a war.

Not for dropping the price at the pump a penny.

Pelosi is nuts.

[Jonny]

At this point, the prices seem to be falling decently enough on their own. Save the Strategic Reserve for an emergency when we really need it (and no, Congress having a less than 20% approval doesn't count as an emergency in my book).

[FrostyBoy]

Just curious, how much is in the U.S. reserve? And who gets to use it? Obviously the military, but trucks, passenger planes, trains, etc, what about them?

[Lancer]

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/spr/spr-facts.html

[Vanguard]

If we are going to attack Iran, then no, not yet.

If we aren't going to, then sure. We should have done it when it was $140.

There is no more important strategic goal than preventing our economy from coming to a halt.

[Patroklos]

(short term reductions in crude oil prices further delay the incentive to invest in them)

False.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Lancer
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/program...spr-facts.html

Is that link serious?

Full drawdown: The President can order a full drawdown of the Reserve to counter a "severe energy supply interruption." EPCA defines this as "a national energy supply shortage which the President determines -
[..]
(C) results, or is likely to result, from [..] (iii) sabotage or an act of God.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Solver


Is that link serious?

Full drawdown: The President can order a full drawdown of the Reserve to counter a "severe energy supply interruption." EPCA defines this as "a national energy supply shortage which the President determines -
[..]
(C) results, or is likely to result, from [..] (iii) sabotage or an act of God.

That be government/insurance talk for natural disaster.

[Solver]

Isn't "force majeure" the usual legal term used for that?

[DinoDoc]

That be too Frenchified a term to take seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Patroklos


False.

They do if it suggests a policy of gradually draining the reserves to depress prices. It delays the onset of higher fuel prices if nothing else.