Word: spr
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...transport system currently delivers 13 million barrels per day to and from U.S. refineries. At peak output, the SPR can pump only about 3.5 million barrels per day, and that only for three months. Then it's gone. Without stringent conservation measures--ideological anathema to Bush and his predecessor--the SPR won't last very long. What does Bush intend to do when the U.S. has used up the SPR? Won't prices creep up again (assuming they fall in the first place...
Worse yet, the SPR, unlike similar European reserves, contains 65 percent high-sulfur "sour" crude, which requires more sophisticated refining. With the takeover of Kuwait, the U.S. lost one of its primary refining centers. This means American refineries will have to take up the slack...
...SHOULD not learn to rely on the SPR to get us through crises, because the SPR is not very reliable itself. According to a report prepared for the Pentagon by RMI, a group of terrorists could spend one night in Louisiana knocking out pipelines which would destroy the ability to supply three-quarters of all the oil and gas used by the eastern United States...
Tapping the SPR is allowing President Bush to avoid the creation of a substantive national energy policy. The SPR, which is a very useful tool, should play a part in that policy. But the SPR is not the ultimate answer for our real energy problem--our gluttonous consumption...
Using the SPR to achieve lower pump prices may turn out to be a short-term palliative. And it may even get George Bush through the next election unscathed. But it is not a lasting solution to anything. A lasting solution will require a willingness to look to the future and make sacrifices in the present...