Byron Dorgan: “before I leave the Chamber, I do wish to mention the Energy Department has made an announcement last week which, once…”

“before I leave the Chamber, I do wish to mention the Energy Department has made an announcement last week which, once again, stands logic on its head. They have announced they would continue putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve underground. They are putting about 60,000 barrels of oil underground right now, at a time when the price of oil is $100 or $110 a barrel. They are busy putting 60,000 barrels a day underground. It makes no sense at all. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is where we store underground that amount of oil we want to use in an emergency is 97 percent full. So the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is 97 percent filled at a time when oil is at a record high. This administration is taking sweet light crude oil, which is a subset of all oil, and a highly valuable subset of oil, and putting 60,000 barrels of oil a day underground. They have announced beginning in August of this year, they hope to get contracts to do just that. We know that in addition to that, they want to increase that, almost double that, to be around 120,000 barrels a day underground for the second half of the year.”