Kerry vows action to lower gas prices -
Tuesday, March 30, 2004 7:01:21 PM
WASHINGTON (AFX) -- Citing soaring gasoline prices, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Tuesday he'd put pressure on foreign oil producers and use the nation's strategic oil reserve program to lower prices
"I'll use real diplomacy to do what George Bush hasn't - pressure OPEC to start providing more oil," Kerry said in remarks prepared for delivery at a rally in San Diego. "We'll stop diverting oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until gas prices get back to normal. We'll simplify the patchwork of rules on gas all over this country so that we can reduce costs and make fuel supplies while keeping our air clean." Gasoline prices have soared to record highs across the country. With the summer driving season around the corner, Democrats see the situation as a potential hot-button issue come November. The Bush-Cheney campaign, meanwhile, has blasted Kerry on the stump and in television ads for having expressed support for a rise in the gas tax in the past
The Bush administration has refused to curtail deliveries of oil into the SPR, saying the effect on gas prices would be negligible
Halting deliveries into the SPR would probably have a short-term psychological effect, but it would be unlikely to substantially alter domestic crude oil inventory, some market analysts say. Meanwhile, the larger the reserve, the better prepared the United States is to mitigate any major price spikes that could follow large-scale supply disruptions, they contend. The Senate earlier this month approved a nonbinding amendment to its fiscal 2005 budget outline calling on the Bush administration to sell 53 million barrels of crude set to be used to top up the 700 million-barrel SPR, which now holds a record 648.2 million barrels
Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, sponsored the amendment. Proponents contend it would boost supplies by 100,000 to 200,000 barrels a day and shave up to 25 cents off the price of a gallon of gas. The change won't occur, however, unless separate legislation clears Congress and is signed by Bush
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday that such a proposal wouldn't pass the lower chamber if introduced
DeLay said it was hypocritical of Kerry to blame Bush for rising gas prices after the Massachusetts senator cast a vote against a procedural Senate motion last fall that has stalled a wide-ranging energy bill
Top Senate Democrats have put the blame on House Republicans, particularly DeLay, saying his insistence on liability protections for MTBE, a petroleum-based fuel additive, have been the primary reason the bill has failed to clear the Senate. Kerry and other Democrats, however, contend the bill puts too much emphasis on increased domestic production of fossil fuels while doing too little to rein in surging domestic fuel demand
In a new Bush-Cheney ad unveiled on Tuesday morning, a narrator says of Kerry: "He supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax. If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year." Kerry in 1994 said he supported a 50-cent rise in the gas tax as a deficit-reduction measure. The Kerry campaign contends the candidate has never sponsored or voted for a half-cent rise in the gas tax and on Monday night charged that Bush had reneged on a campaign promise to lower the tax
The gas tax "has not changed one penny under George Bush. Gas prices, on the other hand, have increased dramatically, reaching their highest level in history and taxing families by $24 billion this year alone," said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter
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