Posted on 08/04/2008 7:34:05 AM PDT by Red Badger
Barack Obama is proposing tapping the nation's strategic oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices, his campaign said Monday.
Obama supports releasing light oil from the emergency oil stockpile now and replacing it later with heavier crude more suited to the country's long-term needs, according to a campaign fact sheet. Light crude oil is easier to refine into gasoline than heavier oil.
Also on Monday, the Obama campaign unveiled a television ad that criticizes Republican John McCain's energy policies.
"After one president in the pocket of big oil we can't afford another," says the ad, referring to President Bush's previous work in the oil industry.
Obama is emphasizing energy and the economy in campaign stops this week in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, beginning with a speech Monday in Lansing, Mich. Gas prices over $4 a gallon have become a top issue in the presidential contest.
In the past, Obama has not advocated tapping the oil reserve, but campaign spokeswoman Heather Zichal said he has reconsidered. "He recognizes that Americans are suffering," she said.
The nation's strategic petroleum reserve consists of about 700 million barrels in salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. It was last tapped shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Otherwise, President Bush has refused to use the reserves, saying they need to be left intact as an emergency stockpile. However, in the face of strong congressional pressure, Bush in June stopped filling the reserve until oil prices decline.
The new Obama ad trumpets his proposal to revive a windfall profits tax on energy companies and asserts that McCain favors tax breaks for the oil industry.
"A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate," an announcer in the ad says.
Obama has pushed for such a tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs.
Congress enacted a windfall profits tax in 1980, during an earlier era of high oil prices, but repealed it in 1988 amid concerns the tax was discouraging domestic oil development. Last year, the House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies, but they were blocked by Republicans in the Senate.
The new ad opens with a driver pumping gas. The announcer says, "Every time you fill your tank, the oil companies fill their pockets."
Republicans were quick to pounce.
"Barack Obama's latest attack ads shows his celebrity is matched only by his hypocrisy," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds. "After all it was Senator Obama, not John McCain, who voted for the Bush-Cheney energy bill that was a sweetheart deal for oil companies. Also not mentioned is the $400,000 from big oil contributors that Barack Obama has already pocketed in this election."
Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said Michigan Republicans planned to go to Obama's Lansing event to pass out tire gauges engraved with "Obama's Energy Plan." That pokes fun at the part of Obama's energy plan calling for people to inflate their tires to the highest correct pressure to help conserve fuel.
Obama has said recently that he would reluctantly consider accepting some new offshore oil drilling. Obama previously opposed any offshore drilling.
Lately, however, he has cited "very constructive" talks between Senate Republicans and Democrats on this issue. He praised a plan unveiled by a group of Republican and Democratic senators to permit drilling while supporting an effort to convert most vehicles to alternative fuels in 20 years.
McCain's campaign accused the Democrat of flip-flopping. However, the Arizona Democrat recently reversed his own former opposition to drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.
Both candidates have energy proposals to reduce U.S. dependence on oil. Obama's was first, and its centerpiece is a 10-year, $150 billion spending plan focusing on clean coal technology, further development of plug-in hybrid cars, commercialization of wind and solar power and other measures.
McCain's, which is called the Lexington Project, includes building 45 new nuclear power plants; offering a $300 million prize for major advancement of low-cost, plug-in hybrid or electric car technology; and "encouraging the market" in wind, hydroelectric and solar power. Both he and Obama would cut use of fossil fuels to combat climate change.
That would not help a damn thing and another stupid statement by the maroon.
Is BO a natural idiot or a good student of idiots?
Stupidity in action.
“In the past, Obama has not advocated tapping the oil reserve, but campaign spokeswoman Heather Zichal said he has reconsidered. “He recognizes that Americans are suffering,” she said.”
Nope...he’s just siding with Pelosi. And if anyone believes that he is really open to compromise on drilling, I have some excellent underwater property (without oil rights) that you might be interested in buying.
;-)
Before the 2006 congressional elections, when gasoline was at about $2.75 a gallon, party leader Nancy Pelosi promised that if a Democratic Congress were elected, it would implement a plan to bring down gas prices.
Such a Congress was elected and we are still waiting for the party to keep its promise.
Now that our nation is on the economic ropes, due to the success of the Democrat’s no-drill, anti-energy efforts, the party is now promising that if we elect Barack Obama and return a Democratic Congress, the sun will shine, birds will sing and all will be right with the world.
Both.
what an idiot
gas prices drop $.50 a gallon since Bush came out jawboning about offshore drilling
so today Barry wants to use our strategic reserve
Algor and Clinton did the same thing in the late summer of his 2000 campaign
We must beocme aware the democrats have no idea of what “strategic reserve” means, nor any idea of how we might need it - in a future war that could start overnight
PS Barry- Anwar and offshore drilling are our strategic reserves- tap them
Of course that is what Obama wants. That would probably lower gas prices just long enough for the election to take place. Then back up go the prices, and it would be too late for the sheeple.
Well, we sure can’t use the reserves at Elk Hills because Al Gore sold them off to his Occidental Oil buddies in the 90’s.
The Inconvenient Truth Al Gore Hopes You Forget!
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=468
[snip]Occidental’s planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn’t only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk [Indian tribe}. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy’s plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.
Gore recommended that the Elk Hills be sold as part of his 1995 “Reinventing Government” National Performance Review program. Gore-confidant (and former campaign manager) Tony Cohelo served on the board of directors of the private company hired to assess the sale’s environmental consequences. The sale was a windfall for Oxy. Within weeks of the announced purchase Occidental stock rose ten percent.
That was good news for Gore. Despite controversy over Dick Cheney’s plans to keep stock options if elected, most Americans don’t know that we already have a vice president with oil company stocks. Before the Elk Hills sale, Al Gore controlled between $250,000-$500,000 of Occidental stock (he is executor of a trust that he says goes only to his mother, but will revert to him upon her death). After the sale, Gore began disclosing between $500,000 and $1 million of his significantly more valuable stock.
Nowhere is Al Gore’s environmental hypocrisy more glaring than when it comes to his relationship with Occidental. While on the one hand talking tough about his “big oil” opponents and waxing poetic about indigenous peoples in his 1992 book “Earth in the Balance,” the Elk Hills sale and other deals show that money has always been more important to Al Gore than ideals.
So the existing refineries will suddenly grow capacity to run the crude from the reserve to make more gasoline, right ?
I have heard that for the last 8 years. I've always thought that President Bush's experience in business (oil, etc) had given him the experience and intelligence to deal with the economics of our country. So, he's made some $$ in the oil business. I'm impressed by that.
I've never considered any of his deeds in office to be purely selfish enough to say he was "...in the pocket of big oil..." - What the hell does that mean?
Do we get a free MommaObama tire guage with that?
Just as soon a Jeannie blinks and Samantha wiggles her nose................
That would make America's enemies happy.
I thought W owned a baseball team...
The man is really an idiot, isn’t he? I mean, dare I say it, John McCain seems sane and thoughtful compared to Obama. This election is all but over. The results are pretty easy now to guesstimate. McCain will beat Obama, and the republicans will pick up a couple seats in the house, keep 45 seats in the senate. Thanks to the shear stupidity of obama, pelosi, and reid.
Isn’t the oil reserve program something along the lines of national defense? And wouldn’t draining it unnecessarily right now be a form of unilaterial disarmament?
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