Editorial: Is Obama's Oil Dump A Political Ploy?

With Democrats' poll numbers in the dumps, President Obama has decided to release some of the U.S. strategic petroleum reserves to cut prices at the pump. Problem is, its only real "strategic" purpose is politics. The White House announced Thursday that for only the third time in history, the U.S. would release 30 million barrels of oil from the national stockpile. America's 727 million barrel-strong reserve, buried deep in the salt domes of Texas and Louisiana, was created in the wake of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. It's always been meant to cushion the U.S. economy against shocks from sudden disruptions in oil supplies. The spigots have been opened just twice — in 2005 by President Bush, who released 11 million barrels after disruptions from Hurricane Katrina, and in 1992 by President Bush Sr., who tapped 20 million barrels in the wake of the Gulf War. President Obama's release — which is far bigger than either of those two emergencies — is supposedly in response to disruptions from Libya, which isn't even a U.S. supplier. It isn't our crisis. It's more than that, given that the IEA's 60 million barrel release amounts to twice Libya's daily lost output. This looks a lot more like a blatant effort to manipulate oil prices globally, using U.S. resources. Instead, Obama has said this release is part of a "coordinated" effort by the International Energy Agency to lower world oil prices and "save" the global economy...more