When George W is against the politically expedient action AND when he bucks the entire Republican Party (including the Evangalicals, the Neo-Cons, the Libertarians, etc.), one has to believe that he just might know something that the rest of us don't.  It really goes against every action that he has demonstrated over the past 7 years. Something to think about.....

"...until the end of 2008 or until oil drops below $75 a gallon, whichever comes first."

I knew the price of oil had gone up. I didn't know it had gone up THAT much! I assume that should be $75 a barrel.

Well it's about time to stop the madness - and the DOE & President's plan for the Richton Salt Dome. That's right, another huge Strategic Petroleum Reserve. First they hollow out the salt dome with water and pump the brine slurry all over the place, killing everything in its path. I hope that project goes FUBAR and is stopped.

Oh, and the little comment at the end about how "Grist would like to remind you that cheaper oil shouldn't be an excuse to use more of it" was hysterical. Stopping a little filling of the salt domes with imported crude oil won't do squat for the price and you should know better than that ...
sammie

Onward through the fog

  70KBpd is peanuts for the global oil market. The impact on price is likely to be very small. But perhaps we shouldn't be buying/storing oil when it is $125 a barrel. In any case, I am glad we are not longer filling up the reserve. The bigger the reserve, the less restrained adventurism (such a bombing Iran) will be. Come to think of it, lets pump out the whole reserve as quickly as possible. Then maybe the temptation can be contained.

...it's actually veto-proof.

because it's not a plan.

economy's wrecked, climate's melting, oil's scarce, green's the way out.

...the one time when we actually don't want a veto is the one time they have enough votes to pull it off...

I knew the price of oil had gone up. I didn't know it had gone up THAT much! I assume that should be $75 a barrel.

It's currently tradin' at above 125 dollars a barrel, if that's any indication for ya.

If gets above 130 dollars, then we should start seein' averages above 4 dollars a gallon.

If it reaches 200 dollars (as is expected to within 2 years) a barrel, then we get close to the 6 dollars per gallon range.

Lower gas prices, well it's the wrong reason to stop filling reserves.  Refining and speculation are more powerful bottlenecks than crude oil supply in retail gas pricing.

And of course this is too small an amount of demand to actually lower oil prices.  Congress is pandering before election time.

But it is the right policy to let reserves stand as they are.  Reduction of consumption should be the main thrust of government policy now.  Government purchasing contracts for mass produced plugin hybrids could actually get that process going.  And subsidies to consumers for using electric plugin "fuel" in their cars.

Geo heat exchange heating/cooling to replace fuel oil heating is another big oil reduction measure.  Subsidize it now!  

Another huge oil saving area would be to power tractors, trucks, and trains with biogas/natural gas.  It would save a lot of farming and trucking supported familes from bankruptcy too.  The natural gas saved by a move to geo heat exchange heating would come in handy as an oil replacement.

Tractors, trucks, and trains have the extra space and weight capacity to carry methane tanks.  

Congress needs to stop talking to lobbyists and ead blogs like this.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog