Ed Markey: “Mr. Chairman, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is aptly named. Strategic comes from its military importance to our…”

“Mr. Chairman, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is aptly named. Strategic comes from its military importance to our country. The reason that we need the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is that it calms our economic, our financial and our energy marketplaces during military crisis, during crises in the Middle East. It gives the United States time to think. It allows our financial markets the time to be able to absorb the shock which is coming out of the Middle East. More important than the B-2 bomber, more important than the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a modern world, where most of the risks are going to come from places that we can identify that send shocks throughout our system, it is needed in order to give us the time to think. It tells our enemies that they cannot panic our economy the way in the 1970's we were panicked. Let us vote not to reduce it.”