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U.S.
Senator Member: Finance, Agriculture, Energy, Ethics and Aging Committees |
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For Immediate
Release Tuesday, May 13, 2008 |
CONTACT: Stephanie Valencia – 202-494- 8790 |
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| Sen. Salazar Statement on Senate's Action Today to Temper Skyrocketing Oil Prices and Provide Relief to Consumers WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the United States Senate overwhelmingly passed an amendment by a bipartisan vote of 97 to 1 that would instruct the President of the United States to suspend acquisition of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) until the price drops to below $75 per barrel. Senator Salazar is a co-sponsor of this common sense amendment that would provide immediate relief to American consumers by suspending new purchases of oil for the SPR, relieving the pressure those acquisitions have put on our nation’s oil supply. The amendment was a part of The Flood Insurance Act (S. 3121) which also passed the Senate today. The House of Representatives is also expected to consider a similar measure later today. Over the last eight months, the United States placed more than 10 million barrels of oil into the SPR as the price of oil rose from $40 to above $120. Today there are approximately 703 million barrels of oil stored in the SPR. This suspension passed today, could fill the nation’s oil supply for 58 days and potentially drop the price of gasoline by 5 to 24 cents. “With the price of oil hovering around $120 a barrel, this is a sensible way to bring down the price of oil by easing supply and demand. If the price of oil remains at historic highs, these painful and unpredictable effects on our economy will only worsen. This is a time for common-sense, bipartisan action, and this is a meaningful and sensible step to give consumers relief from the economic hardships that have been brought about by record-high oil prices,” said Senator Salazar. In April, Senator Salazar wrote a letter to President Bush urging him to place a one-year moratorium on additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and to consider releasing oil from the reserve to address supply problems that contribute to the high price of fuel for American consumers among other immediate action that can be taken to provide relief. In related action today,
the Senate voted down a Republican-sponsored amendment that would have
called for more oil drilling and expanding oil shale production. The
Republican-sponsored amendment would also have repealed a sensible moratorium
on commercial oil shale leasing, which the Congress passed and the President
signed just six months ago. Extraction of oil from oil shale has not
yet been proven to be economically viable and will require use of enormous
amounts of water. We need to adopt a sensible and thorough approach
its development to ensure the technology exists before we rush headlong
in to speculation. This is the same oil shale language that failed in
the Senate just two months ago. ###
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