Cliff Stearns: “Mr. Chairman, I have to tell my colleagues that this is a very interesting amendment and perhaps I would use the word…”

“Mr. Chairman, I have to tell my colleagues that this is a very interesting amendment and perhaps I would use the word ``clever,'' because it is really a back-door attempt to change our energy policy, to really take it away from the President of the United States and to use it so that we can use the reserves from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to manipulate crude oil prices for political gain, I think. I really think the premise of the amendment is false. It says that this amendment can reduce gasoline prices by 10 to 25 cents per gallon. We asked the Department of Energy if they agreed, and they said no. The effect would be between zero and 1 cent per gallon. Now, all of my colleagues remember when President Clinton did this. What was the effect of what President Clinton did? What, 1 or 2 cents? And I think the people who support this amendment will agree. It is going to have a very negligible effect. The world is a much more dangerous place than it was previously. Terrorists have attacked oil installations in Saudi Arabia. We have seen that recently. The bulk of Iraq's exports were shut down on Tuesday by terrorist attacks on two oil pipelines in southern Iraq. So, I say to my colleagues, we need to preserve what we have in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the event, in the event of a true supply emergency, and I think this is more of a political emergency.”