Sam Gibbons: “Yesterday President Bush decided to refill our national strategic petroleum reserves to full capacity. This is very…”

“Yesterday President Bush decided to refill our national strategic petroleum reserves to full capacity. This is very critical and very important and I applaud his decision. During this time of war, the last thing that our Nation needs to worry about is its energy supply. Obviously our President has the foresight to try to prevent a domestic energy shortage as we saw last year, and so did this Chamber and this House when we passed the Energy Security Act months ago. Yet the Democratic leadership in that other body refuses to act on this critical issue. A majority of our energy supply comes from one world region, the Middle East. According to the Energy Department, the United States increased its oil imports between 1973 and 1996 by 40 percent. During these times of war, concentrating oil imports from any one region places America's energy and economic security at great risk. It is time to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. It is time for the Democratic leadership in the other body to act and pass the Energy Security Act so it can be signed into law.”