Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi did her best impression of George Bush last week, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she would not even allow off-shore drilling to come up for a vote despite polls showing 73% of Americans are in favor of it.
Instead, she revealed her own ingenious energy plan to take 10% of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) “and use that to put on the market so that we increase supply, reduce price. And when the price comes down, we can buy back the oil at a lower price, put it in the SPR, use the spread for renewable energy resources.” When Biltzer pointed out to her that the reserve is supposed to be for dire emergencies, Pelosi said that we’re in one.
WRONG!
The 1973 oil embargo that quadrupled prices was a dire emergency. You think $4/gallon gas is bad, imagine $16/gallon. Not to mention that our military runs on oil and we’re in the middle of 2 wars so burning through our reserves wouldn’t exactly be strategic.
Regardless, doing so wouldn’t provide any real relief. The SPR holds about a 727 million barrels so 10% would be 72 million barrels. But as Pelosi herself points out this oil would just be put on the world market which consumes over 83 million barrels a day. In other words, less the 1 days worth.
As far as “buy(ing) back the oil at a lower price,” well that’s just ridiculous. It reminds me of that commercial where a guy buys a painting at an auction and then tells the auctioner “I’d like to go ahead and sell it now.” Who elected this crazy dame anyway… oh that’s right Californa! (figures) If the Dems have any hope of being re-elected they’d better talk some sense into Pelosi, ’cause with an approval rating of 17% they’re starting to make Bush look good.
Oh, and here’s an idea why don’t we ask our NAFTA partners to the north, Canada (from whom we import 99% of of our oil & who have the 2nd largest proven reserves in the world) to increase supply.
