Obama backs oil reserve release: Changes 2nd energy stance

LANSING, Mich. | Sen. Barack Obama put his effort to pursue energy voters into overdrive on Monday, flipping positions to call for releasing oil from the government's strategic reserve just days after he said he was open to expanded offshore drilling.

Mr. Obama, Illinois Democrat, said he reversed his positions because consumers are suffering.

The campaign of his Republican presidential opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said the change was all about politics after polls showed Mr. Obama losing ground. The McCain campaign said gas prices are 23 cents lower now than at their peak a month ago, when Mr. Obama said releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be saved for "a genuine emergency" rather than $4-a-gallon gas.

"Breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face," Mr. Obama told 1,500 supporters Monday in Lansing. "It is going to take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy. Energy independence will require all hands on deck from America."

Republicans, meanwhile, ridiculed Mr. Obama for suggesting last week that motorists keep their tires inflated as a way to reduce energy use. Mr. McCain challenged Democrats to call Congress back into session to boost energy production.

Treading on air

In response to almost $4 a gallon gas, Nancy Pelosi sent Congress on vacation for the rest of the summer without a vote on more domestic oil drilling. On the bright side, 74 new post offices were named!
But House Republicans -- in an unprecedented move called 'opposing the Democrats' -- were back on the floor Monday to continue their protest which started Friday when dozens of Republicans, in response to Pelosi's decision to adjourn, took to the floor in protest instead of solving the energy problem by inflating their tires! The Comprehensive Tire Pressure Gauge Plan is so stupid an idea, Obama came up with it.
After it was painfully explained to him that cars don't run on air, Obama changed his mind again, at first pretending to support more drilling, then on Monday declaring that he favors tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (as opposed to my plan of tapping Obama's mouth for snake oil).
In another sign of how wonderful diplomacy always works, Iran is now threatening to shut the Straits of Hormuz, so draining our emergency reserves and making America more dependant on Muslim fanatics for oil makes perfect sense to Obama. Maybe he needs to adjust his airhead pressure a little.
In line with the brilliance of Obamanomics, Democrats argue hysterically that increasing the supply of oil via drilling won't lower gas prices, but decreasing the supply by draining the SPR will! Interestingly, oil in the SPR comes mysteriously from . . . drilling, which comes as a shock to Democrats who think it all came from wind power.
Proving the idiocy of draining the SPR to lower gas prices, Pelosi strongly favors it. She says she's against drilling because "I am trying to save the planet; I am trying to save the planet" -- further evidence of the dangers of a toxin found in Botox. As Pelosi explains, exploration and drilling to reduce the price at the pump is bad because it "misleads" the American people into "thinking it's going to reduce the price at the pump." We can't drill our way out of this, so let's drain our way out! (Democrat slogan: Drain Here, Drain Now, Pay More!)
Back on July 7, when gas was averaging 4 bucks a gallon, Obama stated he adamantly opposed tapping the SPR because it should not be touched except in a genuine emergency -- supply disruptions, terrorist attacks, shooting war, or dropping 9 points in the polls.
Four weeks later, with gas averaging below 4 bucks a gallon, Obama changes his mind again, adamantly opposing his own position in July. Last week, Hussein denounced offshore drilling as a GOP "scheme," so he adopts it a day later. Now he says he's for and against it.
The reason we even have a Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the first place is because we don't drill enough domestically. And while we're on the subject of lying to the American people, Obama claims the SPR drawdowns in 1991 and 2005 are good reasons we should drain away the SPR now, even though the U.S. Energy Department's own website makes clear the drawdowns were linked to actual or potential supply disruptions, not falling poll numbers:
* The 1991 drawdown occurred at the beginning of Operation Desert Storm as a way for the U.S. and its allies to assure "the adequacy of global oil supplies when war broke out in the Persian Gulf."
* The 2005 drawdown occurred "after Hurricane Katrina devastated the oil production, distribution, and refining industries in the Gulf regions of Louisiana and Mississippi . . . All Gulf of Mexico production, which equates to about 25% of domestic production, was shut in initially." Bush showed his "lack of concern" by immediately authorizing a drawdown to help the region.
Most of the oil in the SPR was bought when oil went for $20-25 bucks a barrel (or thereabouts), so Hussein's "broad energy plan" is to drain the reserves of bargain-priced oil and replace it with $121 a barrel oil.
In May, Congress voted to suspend temporarily the 70,000 barrel per day stockpiling in the SPR in order to bring prices down. In response, prices soared. In 2006, Democrats campaigned on lowering gas prices (prices hovered around $2.30 a gallon then). Nineteen months on, we can't afford a gallon of gas. It's yet another reason why Obimbo will wake up on the first Wednesday next November wondering how he blew it.
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"

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