Senate votes to halt strategic oil stockpiling
Bush wants to keep filling the underground petroleum reserve, but legislators take the near-unanimous action in reaction to record gas prices. The House is expected to concur.
By Richard Simon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
10:13 AM PDT, May 13, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The Senate, jittery about a political backlash over the rising price of gasoline, voted by a veto-proof majority today to halt deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over President Bush's objections.
The House is expected to follow suit later today.
The action, supported by the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, comes as high fuel costs have contributed to the nation's economic woes and become a hot issue on the campaign trail. It could be the only legislation that Congress passes this year in response to public angst at the fuel pump because of the parties' differences over energy issues.
The Senate measure passed 97 to 1, with Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York breaking off from their campaigns to return to the Capitol to vote for the measure. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, supported the measure but was absent for the vote, continuing his campaigning in the Pacific Northwest.
"Why on earth should we be putting oil underground at a time of record high prices?" Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), the measure's chief sponsor, argued.
Bush has resisted calls to suspend the delivery of about 70,000 barrels a day to the emergency stockpile, contending that it would have little impact on prices in a nation that uses about 21 million barrels a day and would weaken weakening the nation's energy security. The reserve was established after the 1973 Arab oil embargo to protect against supply cutoffs and now holds about 702 million barrels in underground caverns on the Gulf Coast.
Bush has assailed Congress for not doing enough to spur more domestic production.
But members of Congress, who, unlike Bush, face reelection, are anxious to show they are doing something to respond to the high prices, even though there is little they can do in the short term to provide relief. Suspending deliveries to the reserve is a modest step that some supporters say could save motorists 2 to 5 cents a gallon, perhaps more.
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), who is retiring from the Senate and has previously resisted suspending shipments to the reserve, was among those supporting the measure. "I have changed my mind," he said, "and it's simply because the price of oil is now up to $125 a barrel."
The measure's approval came as the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline hit a record of more than $3.73, up from $3.07 a year ago, according to the American Automobile Assn.
Earlier today, the Senate rejected a Republican-sponsored measure that called for increasing production by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to energy exploration and relaxing a long-standing ban on new drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
A Democratic proposal to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and roll back tax breaks for the industry and new protections against price-gouging is expected to face a Republican-led filibuster when it reaches the Senate floor, perhaps next week.
OK. Deal!
Got to find something useful about ethanol to post :-) |
