Mike Levin: “The Senate has twice acted on this issue to restore some common sense to our SPR policy. The Senate passed an amendment…”

“The Senate has twice acted on this issue to restore some common sense to our SPR policy. The Senate passed an amendment Senator Collins and I offered, by a bipartisan vote of 52 to 43, SPR deliveries and use the receipts from the sale of the royalty oil for homeland security programs. The Senate amendment regrettably was not retained in conference. Last fall, the Senate unanimously passed an amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill that Senator Collins and I offered that would have required DOE to adopt procedures to acquire oil for the SPR in a manner that minimizes the program's cost to the taxpayers while maximizing our overall energy security. The Senate amendment was not retained in conference, and, unfortunately, DOE has chosen to ignore the Senate's direction in the amendment. The major reason given by DOE for not postponing any of the scheduled shipments into the SPR is that, according to DOE, the amount of oil that is placed into the SPR is only a small fraction of the global daily supply and demand. This comparison is not relevant in a tight market. The amount that is being put into the SPR is about as much as is produced in several of our own States--Wyoming or Oklahoma, for example. It is about three-quarters of our daily imports from Kuwait. In a tight market, this additional demand can cause a large price increase. Moreover, these daily deposits add up to a lot of oil over weeks and months.”