Obama May Open Strategic Petroleum Reserves to Keep Gas Prices Down and..

Obama’s Chief of Staff, William Daley was interviewed on “Meet the Press” this morning. In the interview, Daley said, “The issue of the reserves is one we are considering .. All matters have to be on the table when you see the difficulty coming out of this economic crisis we’re in and the fragility”.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is located across four sites in Louisiana and Texas and according to the SPR website, it currently holds 762.5 Million barrels of oil.

Across the nation gasoline is getting more expensive. Gas prices in North Carolina are hovering just above $3.50 per gallon and there are already areas, such as Chicago,  in the U.S. that are seeing  $4 (according to @deadvoter from twitter). Oil crossed $105 per barrel for the first time since 2008 and the Obama administration is searching for some way to handle the situation.

Democrat law makers think they have the answer. Several of them have sent letters to Obama asking that he open the reserves to give price relief to American consumers and to help fund progressive initiatives. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-NY) letter opens (emphasis mine):

With gas prices around the nation at near-historic highs, we write to urge you to exercise your emergency authority to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  This action would immediately lower gasoline prices, generating significant revenue to invest in your call for one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

While gas prices may be one reason for the requests, Sen. Gillibrand also made the case that this could be a way to fund electric vehicles – a purpose for which the SPR was never intended.

Each time a new revenue stream is introduced at the Federal level, it starts as temporary and ends up being permanent. The questions remains that if the progressives in D.C. turn the SPR into a cash cow for the green energy movement, what will stop them from continuing to do so – completely depleting the entire reserve?