Thats about the only conclusion I can draw from her proposal to open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to lower gasoline prices. President Bush has been dead set against this idea and he is absolutely right on this point. Unfortunately we're probably going to see plenty of more dumb ideas from politicians about to how to deal with high gasoline prices as the election gets closer.

The SPR was created in 1975 to provide an emergency petroleum reserve for the United States in case an event occurred that disrupted normal supply. When filled to capacity the SPR holds a little more than 700 million barrels of oil. That sounds like a lot but it's only 35 days worth at current consumption rates. (More if you only count imports of course). Releasing oil from the SPR in order to manage prices would be a short term fix and would reduce the ability of the SPR to supply the country in the case of a real emergency. Unless we were satisfied with leaving the SPR in a depleted state we would eventually have to refill it. Since there is essentially no spare production capacity left in the world the refilling process would cause a price spike. The only reason behind the proposal that seems to make any sense is an attempt by Pelosi to obtain a short term electoral advantage for the democrats going into the upcoming elections. Since Mac says I'm partisan I guess I should approve of this but the negatives are just to severe for me to do this.
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