By Dale Mastarone
The Obama administration announced it would be releasing 30 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Okay, no big deal. Thirty million barrels is a few hours consumption in the USA – the exercise won’t affect prices at all. But the media promotion will be sure to come that it did do so. And gas prices have actually been coming down lately, why not jump on the bandwagon and snarf up undue credit? That’s re-election politics 101.
What gets me is that the US government bought up about 900 million of barrels of crude oil at maybe $18 to $20 per barrel to store in event of a national crisis of oil shortages. From your and my tax dollars. Now the feds will be selling that $18 crude for $90 on the open market. Aren’t we the people entitled to levy a capital gains tax on the federal government?
The strategic reserve was not originally intended, by law, to be drawn on to be a competitive edge in pricing. Have the legal criteria been met to allow such drawdown of the reserve. Wouldn’t it be logical that the reserve should be in place to fuel military vehicles and aircraft for national defense purpose in a situation where our oil was cut off and we were under attack by a foreign country?
Of course to challenge the Obama administration as to whether the release action is legal or not will most likely result in Eric Holder’s answer which could well be, “Legal is defined by the President, after all he taught Constitutional law. Haven’t you figured out yet that President Obama and I enforce or obey only the laws we choose to define as legal, and the Congress and Courts are of no consequence to us?” Has not Eric Holder been putting forth that same message since he was appointed and confirmed?