Release of oil reserves: Too little, way too late

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The Democrats have been blocking oil companies from developing America’s fossil fuel resources–the largest in the world–for decades. Whenever their anti-drilling policies are challenged, they assure us that increasing domestic production would do little or nothing to bring down the cost of energy.

Yet, whenever the price of gasoline becomes politically embarrassing, what do they do? They take “emergency” action to increase the supply of petroleum by opening up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve–some 700 million barrels of oil that are stored along the Gulf coast. Today the Obama administration announced that it will release 30 million gallons from the reserve in an effort to hold down prices.

No one pretends that this is the intended use of the strategic reserve–the administration is just trying to get past the Fourth of July without too much political fallout from gas prices–nor does anyone think that a one-time influx of oil will have any long-term impact on energy costs. Still, the administration’s action is revealing: if you want to keep prices down, what do you do? You increase supply.

That being the case, why has the Democratic Party done everything in its power for more than 30 years to suppress domestic production of oil?

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This is the epitome of what a purely politically calculated action is. It is meant to portray the President as “caring” about the populace, when in reality, it is only meant to garner some of his lost support.

What the media should be asking Obama, and his WH, about this move, is how, exactly, are they then going to make up for the lost SPR capacity following it’s release? They certainly aren’t going to be able to do so by increasing domestic production. Has South America reaped the benefits of the low-cost loans we gave to companies like Petrobas already? Inquiring minds want to know.

Obviously there once was a time when our leaders thought with foresight, strategically.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have a Strategic Oil Reserve at all.

To see even a portion of it squandered for political capital is disgusting.

We will need to put a check and balance on the president’s ability to do this ever again as a result of Obama’s blatant use of it for mere political mollification of his own supporters.