(These comments were submitted by Former Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo.)

Precedence? You ask what precedent the administration is setting by tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for only the third time in our nation's history? I'll tell you. They are setting a precedent as easily the most blatantly political administration ever in American history.

I'll offer just a few examples of the evidence:

1. This is the administration with a publicly stated objective to "boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

2. This is the administration that cancelled existing leases on millions of acres of federal land and banned development in vast amounts of reserves both on and off-shore.

3. This is the administration that was ordered by a federal court to lift an ill-conceived moratorium on drilling in the gulf, and then was found in contempt with a "determined disregard" of the court's ruling to start issuing permits.

4. This is the administration that turned "a regulatory firehose" on US business and the energy industry in particular with 29 new major regulations and 172 major policy rules finalized or proposed in its first 22 months.

5. This is the administration who lied to congress in March, 2011 by claiming production in the gulf "remained at an all-time high, and we expect that it will continue." However the Government's own Energy Information Agency had already reported a decline of 300,000 bpd in the first year following the administration's gulf moratorium fiasco and projected a total decline in production of 35% by late summer, 2012.

6. This is the administration whose policies have caused revenues from onshore oil and gas leasing in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming to plunge more than 80%, and total acreage leased to shrink to the lowest level ever.

7. This is the administration that Steve Forbes correctly labeled as having the "most anti-oil and gas record in U.S. history."

8. This is the administration that promised that energy cost would "skyrocket" under their plan of onerous regulation.

And, now having waged war on the energy industry and American consumer's wallets for more than two years; that is exactly what has happened. Despite some recent relief, prices for gasoline are almost double what they were when Obama took office, and due to new regulations being imposed by the Obama Administration, analysts are warning that electricity rates could jump 40-60% over the next few years.

The crisis that prompted Barack Obama to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve didn't come from a foreign enemy or a natural disaster, as was the case the only two other times that the SPR has been drained. This was entirely a crisis of Obama's own making. It even has a name – "Operation Re-Election."

The sorry state of the economic recovery and kitchen table issues overwhelm any other issue on the minds of voters. So, Obama and his Central Planners will pull out all the stops in trying to hoodwink the voters one more time; even if that means creating a national security vulnerability by draining the SPR in exchange for a few cents of relief at the pump. This isn't the first time this administration has been shameless, and with a year and a half until the election we're likely in for a few more examples.

(These comments were jointly written by Jan Mueller, who is also now Executive Director at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas - USA; and Art Berman, petroleum geologist and principal at Labyrinth Consulting Services.)

The IEA decision to release 60 million barrels from strategic petroleum reserves of member nations has been criticized as politically motivated, too small and too late to matter, or, at best, as a desperate attempt to fend off economic woes. The reality and impact of the decision are more complex than that. The move is a bold, price-suppressing “poke in OPEC's eye” from nations that have been perpetual price takers in the world oil market. The short-term rationale for the decision, however, should not obscure our real oil problem—geopolitics is combining with economics and geology to put us in an oil crunch that is not likely to abate until our nation moves beyond oil.

The timing and volume of the decision make sense, and one need only to look at the vigorous complaints from Iran to gauge its significance. The Libyan conflict became a factor in February, and it took time to recognize that its 1.7 million barrels per day export volume was lost to the market on a relatively long-term basis, and to fully grasp the impact on the OECD economies. It took time to see that OPEC's promise to cover the loss had little substance, as confirmed by the recent OPEC meeting.

That the released volume is less than a day of world oil consumption does not diminish its significance for oil prices. Oil prices are driven, not by supply and demand directly, but by their effect on oil inventories, and how current stocks of oil compare to past levels. The addition of 60 million barrels of oil is significant relative to presently available stocks (J.M. Bodell, personal communication).

Strategic reserves are not ordinarily counted in comparative inventories and not factored into price formation or price forecasts. The IEA action is an historically unprecedented step to influence price, and the market does not know how far governments may go to support consumers. Oil prices are likely to be suppressed until the market digests the changed conditions created by the IEA action.

Each IEA member has varying reasons to support the decision, but a common European motive is to reduce the negative effect of the Libyan conflict on oil price. The loss of Libyan oil exports is a major factor in the approximately $10 per barrel increase for Brent (North Sea) crude oil, the European price benchmark, whereas prices for West Texas Intermediate, which is more relevant to the United States, have been $10-20 per barrel below Brent prices (despite being lighter and sweeter). Europeans hope the SPR release will lower their oil prices at least through the summer high-demand period, which may provide sufficient time for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to boost supply, if they are able. If economic conditions worsen during that time, the reduction in oil demand may resulting in prices falling further on their own accord.

The IEA decision may have been Europe-driven, but the Obama administration recognizes that rising oil prices have been a headwind to economic recovery, and a looming issue for the 2012 elections. U.S. oil prices, however, had been falling for several weeks before the IEA decision, in part because high oil prices took a toll on demand across the economy, threatening a second dip of recession. The additional supply will have a lesser effect in the United States, but should still push down prices for the near and medium term, and help arrest trends toward renewed recession. Just as the U.S. government seemed to be "out of bullets", a new bullet emerges—one that does not require an act of Congress.

Middle East and OPEC politics have also been underappreciated in the IEA decision. OPEC is deeply divided over the influence of Iran. Iran, a major oil-exporting nation populated with a Shiite majority and led by Shiite rulers, has been increasing its influence across the Arab world, especially following war and political changes in Iraq.

Iran, however, has little to no spare capacity to increase oil exports. Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar—which may have spare capacity—are all Sunni-led, but Saudi Arabia's oil-producing region and the whole of the other countries are inhabited by Shiite majorities. Leaders of these countries are justifiably nervous about rising Iranian and Shiite influence, especially amidst the unrest spreading across the Middle East. An increase in OPEC production or some other force to reduce oil prices, like the IEA decision, is a hit to Iran's financial resources, and a boost to the relative power of other nations in the region.

Bold and unprecedented as it may be, the IEA decision should sound alarm bells about bigger problems, if they were not already ringing loudly. The only reason that 60 million barrels can have such an impact is because of rising prices and great uncertainty in the world oil market about spare capacity and the ability of any country other than (possibly) Saudi Arabia to substantially increase production, while production from most other countries is declining (i.e. Peak Oil is unfolding before our eyes). Even Saudi Arabia’s capacity to increase output is uncertain.

For those who prefer to focus on speculating oil traders to explain rising oil prices, the IEA decision should only encourage more traders to go long in oil. Blaming speculators can also distract decision-makers and the public from acknowledging an impending oil supply crisis facing the United States and the world. Speculation may contribute to higher oil prices, but speculative buyers are driving up prices because the fundamentals say that oil prices are going up even further in the not too distant future.

The real problem facing the United States is that world oil supply is unlikely to meet rising global demand (principally from developing nations), and may decline sooner than many believe. Increasing domestic oil drilling and production may postpone the reckoning, but will not change the fact that U.S. oil production has been on an overall downward trend since 1970, and our dependence on imported oil—not just in the number of barrels we import, but in costs and risks to our economy—is rising.

The only way out is to adapt our economy and our communities to work in a way that requires less oil. And we need to do it fast.

Releasing 30 million barrels of petroleum from strategic reserves is not an energy policy, and it is not an especially useful response to either short-run or long-run pressures on gasoline prices. Because the release is scheduled to stop in 30 days, market adjustments will partially offset the release’s impact in the short run. And in the long run, there is no additional output. In fact, the current released oil will need to be replaced in the future.

Most of OPEC is producing at capacity, so the notion that it is an effective cartel is suspect. Even if it were an effective cartel, the real threat to its dominance would be a sustained increase in production, not a shell-game swapping of petroleum reserves.

The U.S. has about 1.08 billion barrels of petroleum reserves—about 725 million of which are in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The remaining barrels are privately controlled and are used to buffer short-run changes in demand and to hedge against price changes. If traders think prices will rise, they hold more in private reserves to sell later at the higher price. If traders think prices will fall, they sell reserves to take advantage of the relatively higher current price.

From the beginning of the year until the third week in May, private crude oil reserves rose by more than 40 million barrels, with nearly 17 million barrels added in the final five weeks. In the month that followed, the reserves declined by 14 million barrels. Though current reserves are high compared to historical averages, they are not within 30 million barrels of their peak.

So, if the SPR draw down and replenishment signals to the market that there will be a slightly lower price now than previously expected—and a period of slightly higher prices than previously expected will follow—there very likely will be some offsetting changes in private reserves. It would be like the bank calling to tell you it transferred money from your savings account into your checking account. If that’s not what you wanted, you would transfer the money back into savings, and your spending would not change. Indeed, the current price has mostly erased the downward blip that immediately followed the president’s announcement of the SPR release.

On the other hand, policies that increase actual production will change the price. To continue the banking analogy: If you got a raise, your income would rise and so would your long-run spending. Moving money from one account to another does not make anybody richer. Getting a raise does.

To help gasoline consumers, the president should work to open up access to the billions of barrels of petroleum reserves in the U.S. Instead, the administration continues blocking access to our own petroleum production and slow-walking permits where access is allowed.

Enough. That was the clear message President Obama sent last week to OPEC, Big Oil and speculators who have been wreaking economic havoc on the American consumer when he released 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The US was joined by our international partners, including Germany, France, the UK, Japan, and South Korea who also released oil reserves, pushing the total global oil injection to 60 million barrels.

This year’s gas price shocks have hurt families and small business long enough. President Obama needed to take action to prevent inflated prices pull our economy off the road to recovery.

The SPR currently holds 727 million barrels of oil. This oil was purchased by and belongs to the American people. I have called for the release of the SPR several times this year. In February, I was joined by my congressional colleagues Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Rep. Peter Welch and other Democratic members in sending a letter , asking the President to take this action. We introduced legislation because the SPR is the only proven way to provide immediate relief at the pump for families who are suffering due to oil price shocks resulting from the current unrest in the Middle East, which has cut off all Libyan and Yemeni oil exports.

In 1991 when President George H.W. Bush tapped the SPR, it reduced prices by 33 percent. In 2000 President Bill Clinton reduced prices by 19 percent with an SPR swap. And in the wake of Katrina in 2005, President George W. Bush used the SPR to reduced oil prices by 9 percent. Indeed, the SPR has led to Sudden Price Reductions.

Enough with OPEC’s Games:

In a perfect world, or better yet a free market, President Obama would not have needed to tap the SPR. But the oil market is not a free market. OPEC nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran control the supply and set the price. They do not have the health of the American economy in mind. Just two weeks ago, even with lower global supply, due to military conflicts in Libya and Syria, OPEC decided they had no need to raise production.

In truth, OPEC is willing to play any game with global oil markets that keeps prices high enough for them to make trillions (link), yet keeps the US addicted to their product. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal admitted as much to CNN, recently stating: “We don’t want the West to go and find alternatives.”

American consumers spend nearly a billion dollars a day buying foreign oil. Keeping this transfer of wealth flowing to the Middle East is central to Saudi Arabia’s ability to preserve their dictatorship and for Iran to protect state-sanctioned terrorist activities.

Enough with Oil Speculator Manipulation:

Oil speculation has been a major factor in the rising gas prices. Recently, Goldman Sachs told investors that as much as $20 per barrel of oil was due to speculation and not related to supply and demand.

By tapping the SPR, we have put those who seek to manipulate and profit off inflated gas prices on notice. This comes on the heels of the administration’s crackdown on oil speculators at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC recently brought suit against two oil traders who conducted a market manipulation scheme in 2008 that artificially inflated oil prices. After President Obama released oil from the SPR, one oil trader told the press: “This is a stake in the Dracula heart of speculators.”

Enough with “Oil Above All”:

The Republican “Oil Above All” agenda runs contrary to the needs of the American consumer. It was not surprising to hear leading Republicans joining with Big Oil companies in attacking the use of the SPR.

The Republicans are invested in helping their friends in Big Oil keep the price of oil high, and protecting their record profits. It's the calculation behind their budget plan, which would slash Medicare –taking money away from Grandma –while continuing billions in tax breaks and subsidies for the most profitable oil companies. The Republican budget cuts investments in alternative energy by 70 percent in 2012, and 90 percent over the next three years, ensuring that Big Oil faces less competition.

The GOP is also trying to gut the budget at the CFTC, which will take “the cops off the beat” in oil markets, allowing oil market speculators to keep driving prices higher.

Under President Obama, drilling for American oil is the highest it’s been in a decade and natural gas exploration is booming. America is the third largest producer of oil in the world. But all that drilling has not moved the needle on gas prices. How could it, when we only have two percent of the world’s oil, yet we consume nearly 25 percent. We cannot simply drill our way to energy independence or lower prices.

We must innovate and build our way to freedom from foreign oil and OPEC. The jobs renaissance taking hold in America's auto industry is driven by our efforts to boost fuel economy and get more vehicles on the road that use less oil.

Releasing oil from the SPR is an effective way to provide immediate, short-term relief from gas prices and protect our fragile economy as it recovers. But a domestic clean energy agenda, one that focuses on alternatives to foreign oil, has the power to unleash America’s innovation, technology and manufacturing might once again.

The purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is to insulate the United States against a real disruption in global oil supply, especially from the volatile Middle Eastern countries which currently provide the majority of our oil. The only other times the SPR has been tapped have been the international crisis of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and after the domestic crisis of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The current supply disruption in Libya, while certainly a cause for concern, is no national or international supply emergency. The current unrest in Libya has been going on for months, and at the time of the announcement last week, gas prices had fallen 20 cents from the previous month. The timing of the announcement points to other motivations. For example, the administration’s announcement quickly (and conveniently) followed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s dismal comments the day before that the Fed is confused about the slow recovery of the economy and that high energy prices may be a factor.

Also, the summer months are upon us, and demand for energy increases due to America’s travel plans. Thus, the price at the pump will inevitably rise seasonally, much to the chagrin of the public. The administration clearly hopes that tapping into the SPR will ease this price increase, thereby easing the blow to its suffering poll numbers.

If the administration was serious about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing the price at the pump, it would encourage more domestic production. Instead, America’s independent producers have been caught between Obama’s Gulf of Mexico moratorium and the EPA’s regulatory web that delays permits for production and limits access to Alaska’s rich reserves of oil. Streamlining the permitting process and promoting exploration and production would not only strengthen our energy security, but create American jobs—something that the American people desperately want and our economy desperately needs.

President Obama should not wield the vital national security tool of the SPR as a political tool. It is a dangerous precedent that prioritizes political concerns over our nation’s need for energy security.

Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not an energy policy. It does not address the fundamental threats caused by our dangerous dependence on oil, and it will have no impact on oil market fundamentals in the medium- or long-term.

The reason energy prices skyrocket when unrest occurs in the Middle East is because our nation is much too dependent on oil from this volatile region. This dependence hurts our economy and weakens our national security. In order to truly offset high oil and gas prices caused by Middle East instability, we must sever our reliance on oil – not just release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Whenever energy prices spike, elected officials look for a quick-fix, but the hard truth is that none exists. Energy security is not an issue that will happen overnight. It requires a long-term strategy, a comprehensive set of solutions, and we must begin now. A real energy policy should include expanding domestic production of our own energy resources, improving the efficiency of the oil we do use, and in the long-term, breaking our reliance on oil through the electrification of the transportation sector.

Congress and the Administration have an opportunity to protect the nation from future energy price spikes. SAFE urges them to take action now on a comprehensive energy security policy that will make our nation stronger and more secure in the years to come.

The President did the right thing in releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He did it in the right way – in collaboration with the International Energy Agency which matched the US sale with its own 30 million barrels. And he appears to have done it at the right time, since oil prices fell to $91 on Thursday, and continued to slide down over the weekend. Iran denounced the release, signaling that it too is worried that Obama has pricked the speculative bubble on which the Ayotollahs were planning to profit.

The move is only in part about Libya and short term supply shortfalls – more broadly it’s a recognition that OPEC no longer has the will to prevent speculative volatility in global oil prices, and that oil consumers need to take some responsibility as well.

The critics of the move are, of course, correct in saying that this move will have no LONG TERM impact on the supply-demand equation which drives the price of oil. It wasn’t intended to. But it will, and is, having an impact on speculation – and hence on volatility. The more volatility there is in oil markets, the harder it is for oil substitutes to gain market share – and it is the market share of oil substitutes including performance that long term will drive down both the price of oil and American dependence upon it.

As Tom Friedman has repeatedly pointed out, it is the risk that oil producing nations will flood the market with cheap oil and dry up markets for efficient oil substitutes that keeps us addicted to petroleum – not the intrinsic economics of oil substitutes at $90/bbl.

Critics are also correct in pointing out that this one time release is no substitute for a long-term American policy designed to accelerate the replacement of oil in the transportation sector.

The core of such a policy would have three ingredients.

1) We must declare a national oil savings trajectory, and bind ourselves to it. Nothing will unleash investment in vehicle electrification, efficiency, transportation alternatives and high-performance, low-carbon fuels as much as certainty that their market shares will grow because oil’s will shrink. If oil producers cannot undercut markets for their competitors by temporarily flooding the world with cheap oil, oil’s days are numbered.

2) We must back up that trajectory with government policies and investments that create innovative new non-oil solutions through research, provide them with access to affordable capital, and guarantee them fair and equal market access and distribution. Electric vehicles need a recharging network, better batteries, and early adapters – the government can support all three. And shifting goods shipment to rail from trucks, getting our trucking fleet off diesel and on to biofuels or natural gas, and providing passengers with transportation choices ranging from walking to high-speed rail are crucially needed transportation reforms that need technology, credit and markets.

3) We must avoid the perilous pursuit of gasping final fixes to our oil addiction in the form of extreme oil. The most dangerous current proposal facing the Obama Administration is the Keystone XL Pipeline. Bruited by its sponsors as a way to INCREASE US oil supplies, it is in fact a proposal to help the Koch Brothers and other Canadian tar sands interest drain the Midwest of the Canadian oil the region currently relies upon. Its backers admit that Keystone XL means LESS Canadian oil for the Midwest, not MORE, higher prices gasoline, not lower – in fact they are raising their capital with the promise that currently exorbitant European gasoline prices can be forced on the Midwest by pumping Canadian oil supplies out through the XL to Gulf of Mexico and then manipulating the market shortfalls that result.

So the Administration has a lot to do if it wants to follow up on this week’s success. But it ought to be congratulated for establishing that it is going to push back when oil companies and oil speculators try to take advantage of the long term shortage of oil to make short-term speculative profits off volatility.

The oil released from the strategic petroleum reserve will feed America’s addiction for a day and a half. Oil prices and prices at the pump have already declined, due to a drop in demand, and in fact there is a surplus of refined gasoline at Cushing, Oklahoma. So the action is unlikely to have a noticeable effect on pump prices -- or on consumer confidence.

Consumer confidence is the problem to be addressed, because the drop in demand for transportation fuels could signal the beginning of another recession. The roller coaster ride that oil prices have been on for the past two years could has undermined consumer confidence. The price of oil and gasoline can only continue to rise, even with advances in technology, because the overall supply of oil is limited. Drilling for additional oil that continues to rise in price is also not an answer.

To boost consumer confidence, we need a stable, long-term energy policy, and large scale commercial production of advanced biofuels must be a part of that plan. Technology for advanced biofuels can and will continue to bring the costs down through greater efficiencies and use of sustainable supplies of biomass.

Continued federal commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard will help advanced biofuel producers attract the capital needed to begin large-scale production. Tax incentives for advanced biofuels also can help secure investment capital, if they are available to more advanced biofuels, such as algae, and extended beyond their current expiration in 2012.

In fact, the RFS can serve as a more effective strategic reserve of fuel. Consider that the 36 billion gallons of biofuel called for in the RFS is roughly equivalent to the amount of transportation fuel that can be refined from the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The difference is that the capacity to produce renewable fuels at a stable, predictable price is far more strategic.

Other than a political ploy, it is hard to understand the Administration’s release of 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at this time, especially since crude oil prices were actually starting to decline. Rather than taking meaningful steps to increase domestic oil production, the Administration has chosen to block American oil development at every step.

In addition to the well publicized “permitorium” offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of the Interior has imposed new regulations that block onshore development on federal lands. Leasing restrictions are slowing development of oil across the West, particularly in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin, and companies cannot get drilling permits in the Powder River Basin in a timely manner. We’re lucky that the significant oil production from the Bakken formation in North Dakota has been almost exclusively on private lands, otherwise the recent boom that led to the first increase in American production since 1991 would not have happened. Thankfully the promising Niobrara formation in Colorado and Wyoming is also mostly on private lands.

The State Department’s reluctance to approve the Keystone Pipeline, which would bring in crude from our northern neighbor, is delaying another secure source of oil. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has made going after the oil and gas industry a top priority, has weighed in on the side of more delays – forget the economic and energy consequences. The pipeline would be an on-ramp for Montana and North Dakota crude, further encouraging domestic production from an area where many producers must transport their crude by truck or rail.

From Alaska’s Chuchki Sea and onshore federal lands in the West to the Gulf of Mexico, the Administration has thwarted American oil production. Producers in the West hope that the political pressure on gasoline prices will cause the Administration to take meaningful measures to encourage more domestic oil production.

While we certainly understand and appreciate the need to put more oil in the U.S. economy, there are other steps that could and should be taken to increase the supplies of oil and reduce gasoline prices on a permanent basis. The Administration’s move to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will have only a short-term impact on these critical issues facing our country right now. What we really need right now is an energy policy that provides long term solutions to our energy and economic needs.

For example, granting the permits to explore and produce in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in Alaska would allow us to fill the TransAlaska Pipeline and bring 1.37 million barrels per day to U.S. markets. Further, granting the Presidential Permit necessary to build the Keystone XL pipeline project would bring 700,000 barrels per day from Alberta, the Dakotas and Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast refineries, and returning the Gulf of Mexico to its pre-Macondo production levels would add 130,000 barrels per day.

The sum total of these three steps – all of which can be done by the Administration today – would increase supplies by 2.2 million barrels of oil per day. This is not only more than twice the 1 million barrels per day that the Administration is planning to release from the SPR; it’s also a permanent boost in contrast to the Administration’s 30 day plan. In addition, granting permits for Alaska, Keystone XL and the Gulf of Mexico would create 114,700 high-paying American jobs.

We think this is a better long term plan to increase available oil supplies, lower gasoline and diesel prices, and put Americans back to work than a temporary shot in the arm from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Suppose you scrimp and save for years, creating an emergency savings fund to get you through life’s unplanned emergencies. But rather than keeping the money stashed away, you use it to take a European vacation, buy a sports car and a gold watch. What could possibly go wrong, you have a regular paycheck and can begin to save again tomorrow?

We all know that spending our savings frivolously is foolish; emergencies are sudden and occur without notice. Equally as foolish – selling off 30 million barrels of our nation’s emergency supply of oil when no emergency exists – is now national policy. The policy took effect June 23, when the Obama administration announced the oil sale from America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Many of us old enough to remember the 1973-74 OPEC oil embargo can recall its painful effects – long lines to fill our cars with gasoline, increased gasoline prices, an economic recession, falling stock prices, rising inflation and increased unemployment across the nation. Not exactly the “good old days” that anyone would want to return to.

In response to the oil embargo, Congress passed legislation authorizing the creation of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System to give Americans greater access to our domestic oil, and also authorized creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was supposed to protect our nation from future oil supply disruptions, whether caused by embargoes or by natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods.

As the Department of Energy says on its own website: “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, filled to its capacity of 727 million barrels, is the world’s largest supply of emergency crude oil. … In the event of an energy emergency, SPR oil would be distributed by competitive sale. The SPR has been used under these circumstances only twice (during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005) (emphasis added).”

Thankfully, we’re not facing an energy emergency today. In fact, gasoline prices are falling and there is no supply shortage in the United States. So it makes no sense and weakens our economic and national security to start selling off our oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve now.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency lifeline to protect our nation against critical shortages in our oil supply. It shouldn’t be used as a Strategic Political Reserve to boost the popularity of elected officials.

Tapping into the reserve now raises a dangerous precedent. Should the reserve be raided again in the future whenever the president – whether Democrat or Republican – is looking for a popularity boost to deal with a political emergency rather than an oil supply emergency?

Finding new oil here in the United States makes a lot more sense than raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and wiping out our emergency supply. Just as an unemployed person works to find a job before spending down everything in his bank account, we need to find new oil before using up everything we’ve saved in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

But isn’t America running out of oil? No, it’s not. This myth has been repeated so often that millions of Americans understandably believe it’s true.

In fact, America is not energy poor – we’re energy rich. We have more oil, natural gas and other energy resources under our feet and off our shores than just about any country on Earth. And we’re finding new – and environmentally safe – ways to bring these energy sources to us all the time. Examples include technology for extracting oil from shale and from oil sands, and technology for bringing vast amounts of natural gas to the surface by using hydraulic fracturing.

The problem isn’t that America lacks energy resources. The problem is that America’s government is making it extremely hard – if not impossible in some instances – to use these precious resources, even with extensive environmental safeguards.

From the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico to our nation’s Pacific Coast… from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and neighboring states to the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas … from untapped oil and natural gas fields in the Lower 48 states to Alaska... our nation is blessed with immense and untold energy riches.

Keeping our energy riches locked up and out of reach makes about as much sense as a millionaire keeping all his cash stuffed in a mattress – and then begging for money because he won’t give himself access to his own fortune. We need to take advantage of our energy wealth.

The death of the hydrocarbon molecule has been forecast for a very long time, but it will continue providing the American people with reliable, secure, abundant and efficient energy for many decades to come. The members of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association and the hard-working men and women we employ are proud to be able to harness this amazing molecule to serve the American people every hour of every day.

Market manipulation for political purposes is never a good thing and in this case is likely to have unintended consequences greater than the intended ones. If this sounds cynical, the Obama Administration has provided reasons for cynicism.

So, let’s get this straight. The conflict in Libya has been underway since February and the Obama Administration is just deciding that the loss of 1.5 million barrels a day is a problem. Why wasn’t it a problem sooner. The Secretary of Energy claims that the release is to “relieve pressure on oil markets”. Since prices were declining before the announcement, you have to ask, what pressure? And, to make matters worse, this decision came shortly after the Saudi’s pledged to increase their production. Strained relations won’t get any better from this decision.

Libyan oil is sweet--low sulfur-- crude that is used primarily by european refineries. Nigeria is also a source of sweet crude and the problems there could exacerbate the loss of Libyan crude but all of that is primarily a european problem; not a US or global one. Is the oil being dumped on the market low sulfur sweet crude? If it isn’t, how does it compensate for the loss of Libyan crude?

Clearly, there are more questions than there are answers!

The recent decline in crude prices is a sign that recovery from the recent and very severe recession was faltering both here and abroad. Politicians are confronted with the possibility of a double dip and high oil prices and on both sides of the Atlantic have been stumbling from using one failed policy tool to another. It looks like the tool box, almost empty, had one more tool--2 million barrels a day for the next 30 days. What happens after that?

Fear and raw politics are most likely the motivators for the Administration’s action. After two years of getting the high energy prices it wanted, the Obama Administration finally woke up to the fact that they were hindering economic growth and damaging the President’s re-election prospects.

Since taking office, the President has done nothing to encourage domestic energy production or any other energy related actions which would have sent a message that he understood that abundant, affordable energy was a key to economic growth. The Administration scoffed at the notion that more domestic energy would have any affect on crude prices which are set in the global market place. In releasing SPR oil, he is doing the same thing that increased production would do and now claiming that it will have a positive affect. Talk about trying to have it both ways!

The price of crude has been high because of a risk premium associated with unrest in the Middle East and two wars and a belief that investing in oil was better than investing in companies. The latter is the speculation effect.

There is little that can be done about the risk premium in the short run. On the other hand, sound economic policies that restore consumer confidence and encourage business to invest would lead to money shifting from commodities to equities. And, a sound energy policy which focused on increased domestic supplies would send a signal that the US was committed to increasing its production. This would change expectations and futures prices. Renewed leasing in the Gulf of Mexico could lift production several hundred barrels a day in the near term and leasing in Alaska and its coastal waters could lead to an increase of upwards of 2 million barrels a day by the end of this decade.

Whether we import more or less foreign oil is a policy issue; not a geological one. Increasing domestic production should take precedence over periodic politically driven releases from the SPR.