U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson canceled a trip scheduled for September 22nd in order to attend White House discussions on the possible release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).
A spokeswoman from the Department of Energy (DOE) said that: “The administration is continuing to have discussions on the oil issue and the secretary needed to be in Washington today.” Richardson told lawmakers during a congressional hearing on September 21st that President Bill Clinton’s decision of whether to use the emergency stockpile was “imminent.”
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore set off a storm of controversy on September 21st by releasing a statement proposing that Clinton start swapping oil from the SPR in batches of 5 million barrels.
Clinton said earlier in the week that he needed “a few more days to decide” about tapping into the emergency reserve. The administration has been hesitant to release oil from the reserve, fearing that doing so might establish a precedent as the SPR is only supposed to be used in the event of a supply crisis and not one determined by high prices.
Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers had advised Clinton in a September 13th memo that using the SPR would be a “major and substantial policy mistake,” a view reportedly also held by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
However, Summers appeared to have a change of heart on September 21st, giving a cautious endorsement of the vice president’s proposals. Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush Jr. blasted Gore’s proposal as “an election year ploy” that is “short-sighted and potentially harmful to national security.”
( oilnavigator )
