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Report: Britain, US to greenlight release from emergency oil reserve
Britain and the United States have informally agreed to release emergency oil stockpiles amid growing pressure on President Obama to do something about soaring gas prices, according to a news report.
The Obama administration will formally request Britain’s participation in the oil release soon, but the details of the agreement have yet to be ironed out, Reuters first reported.
"It is inaccurate, as was reported today, that any kind of agreement was reached on a course of action," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Thursday during his daily briefing. "Those reports are wrong. They’re false."
Carney said that Obama and Cameron discussed energy issues during their meeting Wednesday, but he offered no specific details about the discussion.
White House and administration officials had said previously that tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was on the table.
Some Democrats and liberal groups have been pushing Obama for weeks to tap the SPR, a 696-million-barrel oil stockpile stored in salt caverns along the Gulf Coast. They have cited concerns about supply disruptions from Iran in making the case for the release.
Republicans have dismissed the move as a ploy to score political points amid gas prices that are nearing an average of $4 per gallon nationally.
Obama released 30 million barrels of oil from the SPR last summer in order to make up for supply losses from Libya. At the time, administration officials said the supply losses were threatening the economic recovery.
The president tapped the SPR in conjunction with International Energy Agency nations.
Republicans have sought to pin the blame for higher gas prices squarely on Obama’s shoulders, arguing he is not doing enough to expand drilling and criticizing his January decision to reject the Keystone oil pipeline.
The White House has launched a full-court press to counter the GOP attacks, amid polls that show the public thinks Obama is not doing enough to address high gas prices.
The president delivered an energy speech Thursday in Maryland, the fourth in as many weeks, in which he touted his administration’s efforts to expand offshore drilling.
He also stressed that there are no quick fixes for prices at the pump, which averaged $3.82 cents per gallon nationally on Thursday, according to AAA.
Federal policymakers have few options to lower gas prices in the short term, according to energy analysts. Gas prices are tethered to oil prices, which are set by global markets based on a slew of complicated factors.
But experts say releasing oil from the SPR, if it’s done in conjunction with other countries, could lower gas prices, at least temporarily.
“When the SPR is used, it tends to have a short-term impact,” Richard Newell, the former administrator of the Energy Information Administration, told The Hill earlier this month.
But Newell warned that oil should be released from the SPR only if there are major supply disruptions.
“I don’t think we’re currently in that situation,” Newell said, adding that policymakers are likely watching the increasingly tense situation in Iran, where officials have threatened to block a strategic oil route.
This post was updated at 1:10 p.m.
