WASHINGTON, 20 May 2004 — US President George W. Bush yesterday strongly rejected the idea of tapping emergency oil reserves to rein in surging gasoline prices as the election-year debate over energy strategy escalated.
Bush accused Democrats of playing politics with the rise in gasoline prices, saying that calls by some of them to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would leave Americans more vulnerable if a terrorist attack were to occur.
“We will not play politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Bush told reporters after a meeting with his Cabinet. “The idea of emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would put America in a dangerous position in the war on terror,” Bush said.
Bush’s challenger for the presidency, Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, has criticized Bush for not doing enough to provide Americans with relief from record-high gasoline prices that have topped $2 a gallon.
Kerry said temporarily halting shipments to the emergency oil reserve would be one way to address the problem. Some Democratic lawmakers have gone a step further by saying that Bush should release some of the oil from that reserve.
Bush expressed concern over the high price of gasoline and its impact on American consumers but pressed lawmakers to ease the pain by swiftly passing an energy bill now before Congress.
Soaring gasoline prices threaten to become a major political liability in the run-up to Nov. 2 presidential elections.
“We’re at war. We face a tough and determined enemy on all fronts, and we must not put ourselves in a worse position in this war. And playing politics with the strategic petroleum reserve would do just that.”
Bush ordered in November 2001 that the strategic petroleum reserve, stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, be filled to its maximum capacity of 700 million barrels.
The reserve is at a record 659.5 million barrels and growing even as oil and gasoline prices stay high. A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline rose one cent from the previous day to a record 2.009 dollars, according to a survey of 60,000 self-service stations by the motorists group AAA.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, the price of a barrel of crude oil for delivery in June soared 71 cents to $41.25 after industry surveys showed little change in US commercial inventories.
“I am concerned about the price of gasoline at the pump. I fully understand how that affects American consumers. How it crimps the budgets of moms and dads who are trying to provide for their families. How it affects the truck driver. How it effects the small business owner,” Bush said.
But “I anticipated this three years ago,” he added. Bush said his energy plan would ease the situation by making the United States less dependent upon foreign sources of energy.
