Rep. Hoyer skeptical on tapping petroleum reserve

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday that he is skeptical that the United States can combat rising gasoline prices by tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

“The higher [the price of gas] gets the more pressure there will be … whether that will lower prices, I personally am not confident it will do that,” he said. “Historically, I have been reticent.”

Hoyer said that the SPR, a 696-million-barrel stockpile of oil stored in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast, is important to maintain intact in case of a true supply disruption such as a “conflagration” in the Middle East, something he said was “not too far-fetched.

Hoyer told an audience at an event sponsored by Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, that unlike in the 1970s, the market now is being driven by demand from emerging powers like China and India. These market entrants make tapping the SPR less effective on prices, he argued.

Hoyer’s position puts him at odds with liberals in his own party. Last Wednesday, Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) wrote to the White House asking that the SPR be tapped.

The minority leader said that discussions on SPR are under way and that he does agree rising gas prices are threatening the economy. He said that the bottom line is that in the short term, it is “very difficult” for Congress to do anything about gas prices.