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Congress enacted a windfall profits tax in 1980, during an earlier era of high oil prices, but repealed it in 1988 amid concerns the tax was discouraging domestic oil development.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.
Yeah, well that, too.
Neither drilling nor taping SOR’s will do as much in lowering prices as hitting world futures traders in the wallet.
ONLY when they’ve realized significant loss of wealth in other investments and stocks will they realize their exhuberance over oil has cost them much more than they gain.
REmember whin clinton released the reserves when gas prices when up 3 cents?
Obama’s limitations and incompetence has NOTHING to do with race — he’s simply not very bright or a Marxist dedicated to the destruction of America, or both!
Obama is perhaps the only candidate ever put forward who could make Jimmy Carter look slightly competent.
How can they say that a few million barrels from the strategic oil reserve will help and also say that 10’s of billions of barrels from the gulf and ANWR will only help by 2 pennies per gallon. I hope Dem voters are paying attention.
Both. They the two terms go hand in hand. To be a Marxist, you can’t be very bright in the first place.............
That’s what is so incongruous about the whole thing. On the one hand, they say, “Drilling won’t help.” but on the other they say, “Releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve will help.”
It makes absolutely no sense on any level, and so abundantly so that even an elementary age child could see that it is so...............
That, and taxing the obscene profits of the evil Bush, Cheney oil companies. They control the world you know. McCain is a brain dead puppet of big business and the Evil oil barons.
Yup, that's what I am hearing out there.
Thanks for confirming my suspicions. And we all know how anxious a Democratic president and/or Congress will be to replenish any reserves thereby distributed. It would be permanent disarmament as a liberal strategic tool.
When “O” loses this election, there’s gonna be a lot of BDS people on suicide watch............
Remember it was just a couple of months ago the Pelosers wanted the filling of the SOR to be halted, even though they were already 97% full...............
Dumbo! You ain’t gonna be President so just sit down and STFU!
He already thinks he is.....................
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/president-obama.html
Yes, we want someone that has no idea of how the oil industry works or how a business runs to fix the problem!
Someone might want to point out that A) it's called the Strategic Oil Reserve for a reason, and B) gas has gone down about 40 cents a gallon without it.
If you’re not part of the solution, then you must be part of the government............
That’s a good line, Red.
“Barack Obama is proposing tapping the nation’s strategic oil reserves to help drive down gasoline prices, his campaign said Monday.”
I bet Nancy bitched him out for favoring drilling. Made her look bad.
Which leaves us clueless as to whether or not USAmerican liberals see it. But if they are still behind Nancy PullHoseC, they don't see much.
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