Senator Bond Against Tapping Oil Reserves

Missouri’s senior senator says this is not the time to start drawing down our strategic petroleum reserves. Gas prices at the pump are near $2 a gallon and going up. This is a country that imports half of its oil and producers halfway around the world decide how expensive crude will be. Some political leaders in this country say it’s time to drain off some of our stored oil to bring the prices down. But Senator Bond says it would make no sense to do that. He says raiding the strategic petroleum reserves would only drop the pump prices by a couple of pennies or so and would leave us vulnerable. Bond says $2 a gallon for gas is bad. He says he hates it, but he says we have only ourselves to blame for some of this problem. He says OPEC has this country where we are because the United States is not developing its energy resources and because Congress cannot get together on a national energy policy.