Originally Posted by highsea

The one area I disagreee with the administration, is on oil policy. Dubya has overseen a doubling of world oil prices, and he could have acted to check this.

In 1991, Bush Sr. announced a "test sale" of something like 10 million bbl. from the SPR at the oubreak of hostilities of GW1. The effect was calming on the oil markets, and sent the message to producers that the US would act if oil prices got out of control. As a result, prices remained stable, even when Kuwait's oil fields were burning.

Dubya could have done the same thing, but instead has done nothing. Granted, the donks didn't help by blocking his energy policy for the last 5 years (effectively killing domestic exploration), but that is what adversary parties do.

I know a lot of people will disagree with this- using the SPR as market moderator, but the high cost of oil is the #1 drag on the economy, not to mention the billions we have shelled out in airline subsidies due to high fuel costs. Also since we are still filling the SPR, any selloff would probably have been offset by the lower prices.

As it stands, we are sitting at $62+/bbl, with virtually no chance of ever seeing $40 again. I believe this could have been prevented with some nominal symbolic selloffs from the SPR, just as we did in '91.