Penetrating Insights into the Obvious
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Congress enacted a windfall profits tax in 1980, during an earlier era of high oil prices, but repealed it in 1988 amid concerns the tax was discouraging domestic oil development.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.
;-)
Peloser must have given Brawk one helluva smackdown this weekend for saying Friday he may compromise on drilling.
Liberals don’t care. Facts are irrelevant. Truth is insignificant. The only thing that matters is power. Get it. Wield it. Hang on to it. Damn everything else..............
I doubt all other sources would be shut down. I have a hard time believing we would ever need to replace more than OPEC deliveries at any given time.
So the delta is probably about 1 MMBPD less than we have now.
LOL!!!!
That appears to be more than all the U.S. oil Co. Profits.
Goes along with Pelosi saying she would sell off reserves to lower crude prices then buy back @ the lower price.
Democrats are economic idiots!
Should have added you NEVER let the market know your intentions or your manipulations of it will be for naught.
The average price for the crude in the SPR is $28.00.
Think of the extreme cost to the taxpayers if it is squandered away, and then refilled at these prices? There goes all those “savings” at the pump that this 35 day reserve would provide. By about 3 fold.
The Democrats are either complete idiots or extremely shrewd, knowing the stupidity of the public. As are the American public for being so terminally ignorant.
Finally!
The MSM gets something right for a change! ;^P
Now, with the dishonest grammar corrected:
In the past, Obama has not advocated adamantly opposed tapping the oil reserve, but campaign spokeswoman Heather Zichal said he has reconsidered. "He recognizes that Americans are suffering gullible," she said.
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