Political Quotes

“now they are experimenting on us with this price band. That is a pretty dangerous precedent to set, but, nevertheless, we have become so beholden to OPEC, we are 56-percent dependent on OPEC. The occupant of the chair remembers the Arab oil embargo in 1973. We had gas lines around the block. A lot of people were unhappy. Oil was more than $30 a barrel. We were excited here. We were concerned. We said: We will never allow exports to get to a level of more than 50 percent. We created something to ensure that we had some relief. We created the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We wanted to have a 100-day supply. I think we have a 56-day supply in the SPR today. Now some people say: We have an emergency. Take the supply out of the SPR. Think about that. It is very dangerous to use your reserve to manipulate prices. You can only draw about 4 million barrels a day out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is located in the salt mines of Louisiana. If you take it out, remember, you have to refine it. Then what are you going to do for a fallback in a real emergency? OPEC is watching what we do. If we pull down our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we become that much more vulnerable and, as a consequence, more likely to be held hostage.”