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To: thackney

Apparently, I got under yer skin. Let me help you out, here. During the faux oil embargo of the 80s, my dad was an investigator for the Federal Trade Commission and was assigned to investigate the “oil embargo”. What he discovered was that it was a phony “shortage” and that Reagan fought back by authorizing oil from the SPR to be used to “offset” the alleged shortage.

I also remember that Bush I or Clinton decided that the oil that had been taken from the SPR had to be replenished. I don’t know why your information fails to mention this, but I remember it pretty well.


77 posted on 03/10/2008 6:16:27 PM PDT by DustyMoment (FloriDUH - proud inventors of pregnant/hanging chads and judicide!!)
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To: DustyMoment
Reagan fought back by authorizing oil from the SPR to be used to “offset” the alleged shortage.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been out.

What you described above never happened.

I don’t know why your information fails to mention this, but I remember it pretty well.

It isn't my information, it is from the Department of Energy.

84 posted on 03/13/2008 4:43:54 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: DustyMoment
Reagan fought back by authorizing oil from the SPR to be used to “offset” the alleged shortage

I thought you would be interested in a little more complete information.

The SPR Drawdown Plan, submitted by the Reagan Administration in late 1982, provided for price-competitive sale of SPR oil. The plan rejected the idea of conditioning a decision to distribute SPR oil on any “trigger” or formula. To do so, the Administration argued, would discourage private sector initiatives for preparedness or investment in contingency inventories. Many analysts, in and out of Congress, agreed with the Administration that reliance upon the marketplace during the shortages of 1973 and 1979 would probably have been less disruptive than the price and allocation regulations that were imposed. But many argued that the SPR should be used to moderate the price effects that can be triggered by shortages like those of the 1970s or the tight inventories experienced during the spring of 1996, and lack of confidence in supply availability. Early drawdown of the SPR, some argued, was essential to achieve these objectives.

The Reagan Administration revised its position in January 1984, announcing that the SPR would be drawn upon early in a disruption. This new policy was hailed as a significant departure, considerably easing congressional discontent over the Administration’s preparedness policy, but it also had international implications. Some analysts began to stress the importance of coordinating stock drawdowns worldwide during an emergency lest stocks drawn down by one nation merely transfer into the stocks of another and defeat the price-stabilizing objectives of a stock drawdown. In July 1984, responding to pressure from the United States, the International Energy Agency agreed “in principle” to an early drawdown, reserving decisions on “timing, magnitude, rate and duration of an appropriate stockdraw” until a specific situation needed to be addressed.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve:
History, Perspectives, and Issues
http://digital.library.unt.edu/govdocs/crs/permalink/meta-crs-9965:1
page 14 of 18

Although Reagan submitted a plan in 1982 to do so then changed it in 1984, you can see from the stock levels that it was never carried out.

85 posted on 03/13/2008 12:06:26 PM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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