Releasing Oil From The Strategic Petroleum Reserve May Not Be Necessary

See Some Non-Strategic Thinking About a Non-Problem by Mark Perry of "Carpe Diem."

"Gasoline prices have been dropping steadily for the last six weeks, and the current price of $3.62 per gallon (national average) is the lowest in three months and almost 8% below the recent peak of close to $4 per gallon in early May (see chart above). America's stock of crude oil for the week ending June 17 was at the highest level (1.065 billion barrels) in more than four month since early February. So what's the administration's "solution" to the "non-problems" of rising oil supplies and falling oil and gas prices?

Tap into America's "Strategic Petroleum Reserve" for 30 million barrels of oil, enough for about 36 hours of domestic consumption, while at the same time opposing any legislation that would allow greater access to domestic oil supplies, see Mark Green's post at the Energy Tomorrow blog titled "Non-Strategic Thinking." Mark quotes American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard on CNBC:

"It's confusing as to why we would wait to this point to release part of the (SPR), but we've still failed to step forward and say let's bring long-term supply to the marketplace, create American jobs at a time when we have 9.1 percent unemployment and produce millions of dollars of federal revenue at time when we're struggling with a debt and deficit crisis. ... Just yesterday the administration sent a letter to Capitol Hill opposing a permitting bill that was designed to expedite permits in Alaska to produce oil and natural gas. We are getting a confused message."

Larry Kudlow is rightly skeptical and suspicious of the "government solution" to the "non-problem" and wonders if the IEA delivered a "QE3 quick fix to save Obama’s skin?" and concludes "Lord save us from short-run government fixes. Haven’t we had enough of them?""