Pete Domenici: “First, might I say to my good friend from New York, I respect his continuous efforts in this regard. But I would say, do…”

“First, might I say to my good friend from New York, I respect his continuous efforts in this regard. But I would say, do not misunderstand that to mean I think his amendment will do any good. I think, first of all, the Senate should know the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not a reserve to supply the United States with oil on a day- by-day basis. It is a reserve in the event we have a crisis. We had a crisis that started this. That is why we started the Reserve. We had a crisis because Iran, years ago, decided to cut us off. They did not cut us off by a huge amount, but just enough to send a turmoil into the market. Our prices skyrocketed, and the United States said: Well, let's find a place to put some oil that we can retrieve if we have a crisis. Now, everybody should know a crisis does not mean the price is too high or the price is too low. It means America has suffered an untoward shock, a war that all of a sudden happened, and we started drawing down, not an ongoing, everyday event that we just play and have to work in the marketplace. Now, how much do we have? Years ago we thought we had a very big reserve. In 1985, we said: We want to have 118 days of supply; that is, if we needed it, and needed it every day, continually, to supplement what we had domestically, we had 118 days. Because of our growing dependence and other things, we now have 59 days. The Reserve is 59 days of import protection. I ask the Senate, is 59 days too much?…”