Jeff Bingaman: “the thrust of that article is that the decision to go ahead with release of oil from the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum…”

“the thrust of that article is that the decision to go ahead with release of oil from the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, was the right decision. He says we should be tapping our oil reserves. In fact, our mistake was that we waited too long; we should have been doing it months ago. But he applauds the decision of the President last week to go ahead now. I commend that article to my colleagues. Beyond crude oil availability, the other key and a more complicated element is U.S. refining capacity, which currently is at near maximum utilization. While it is true that the number of refineries has decreased during the past 10 years, the capacity has actually increased. In 1990, there were 205 refineries. By 1998, that number had decreased to 163. However, the total capacity increased from 15.57 million barrels per day to 15.71 million barrels per day over that same period. Certain small, inefficient refineries which were originally built to take advantage of the old oil allocation rules were shut down rather than upgraded to produce cleaner fuels, but the refineries that did upgrade to comply with the Clean Air Act actually expanded capacity--more specifically, the capacity to produce light products.”