Political Battle Over Oil Prices Heats Up
24.05.12
(Wall Street Journal) - A political battle over high oil prices deepened on Sunday, with a senior campaign adviser to US President Barack Obama suggesting that the White House might be considering whether to release oil from the nation's emergency stockpile.
"I know that the White House is going to look at every available option in the short- and the long-term," campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said on CNN's "State of the Union." But he said he was "no longer in those meetings" where policies on releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are discussed. He said that "we're not going to magically make this problem disappear."
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner suggested something similar, saying on CNBC that "There is a case for the use of the reserve in some circumstances and we will continue to look at those and evaluate that carefully." He also said the US was trying to minimize the risk of Iran disrupting the oil markets, by trying to "make sure there are alternative sources of supply from Saudi Arabia and others to help compensate for reduced exports from Iran."
Source: MyFox Phoenix