The Strategic Petroleum Reserve

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an emergency fuel store
of oil maintained by the United States Department of Energy.
Some clueless individuals are asking the Federal government
to release oil from the Reserve so that they will not have
to pay such high prices for gasoline. The Feds are in the
banking, car and insurance businesses already, why not the
fuel business?!
The Federal government created a “stimulus” package of
almost a thousand billion (trillion) dollars and spent much
of it for road resurfacing and bridges. I bet you don't
know what gas taxes are for! If you said roads and bridges
and “infrastructure” for highway transportation, then you
are correct. That means that the government has taxed gas
much less than the rest of the world, and intentionally let
our infrastructure deteriorate. Much was probably used to
subsidize windmills. Don Quixote would be proud!
We are in trouble because the Federal government is
incompetent to do central planning. We had a mortgage
“crisis” in the 1980s and early 1990s (S&L crisis). That
cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. The movie
Wall Street depicted the times. Remember the “Greed is good”
line? The mortgage “crisis” of this decade has been blamed on
“greedy bankers.” The clueless Feds don't understand
capitalism. Greed is indeed a good incentive to risk capital
and create jobs – and we got a new Wall Street movie. Federal
incompetence is good fodder for Hollywood!
We have enough energy sources to be energy independent, but
the DOE does not like “carbon-based” fuel. They should drive
solar-powered, electrical cars. Chu is also anti-nuclear.
Obama cancelled the Yucca Mountain storage facility for
nuclear waste that utility customers had paid $14B for.
Governor Haley demanded that the Feds return the $2.6B to
South Carolinians. Hooray for Nikki! Meanwhile, China is
building a nuclear plant each week!
The Feds placed a moritorium on drilling in the Gulf of
Mexico and has stalled permits. At the same time, they loaned
$2B to Brazil-controlled Petrobras for deep-water drilling using
the U.S. Import/Export Bank.
If this is an “emergency”, then all known sources of fuel
should be made available. If new infrastructure is needed,
then the gas tax should be raised to pay for it.