Ed Markey: “I rise because of my great concern that within this bill is the reauthorization for the Energy Policy and Conservation…”

“I rise because of my great concern that within this bill is the reauthorization for the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. But missing from it is the language which would authorize the President to deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or to create a regional home heating oil reserve on a permanent basis. When this bill left the House, it was in. As it comes back from the Senate, it is gone. Now, I know that there are some people, George Bush, who is saying it is 45 days before the election. I understand his perspective. But for those of us in the Northeast and the Midwest, we have a different perspective. We think it is 45 days before winter. We think the President should have the authority to create a regional home heating oil reserve on a permanent basis, to have a trigger in it that is a definition that he can use to deploy it, that is flexible so that we can deal with the fact that two-thirds of all the home heating oil in the world is really consumed in the northeastern part of the United States, and that ultimately there can be this depressing impact upon the price of crude oil. Since last Wednesday when this discussion began in the Clinton-Gore administration, the price of oil has dropped $6 a barrel, from $38 down to $32, which is good for the consumers.”