FuelClub Discount

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plan to release oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve may lower crude and gasoline prices in the short term, but it could also leave the United States more vulnerable in a supply emergency.

Obama called this week for easing fuel prices by releasing some 70 million barrels of light, sweet crude from the nation’s stockpile and swapping it for less expensive heavy, sour oil.

The hope is that putting more oil on the market will push down crude prices and those savings will be passed on to consumers at the gasoline pump.

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Earlier in the presidential campaign, when John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a summer holiday on the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax, Barack Obama dismissed the tax-vacation as an election-year gimmick that offered financially-squeezed families “just pennies.” I wrote that, unlike Clinton and McCain, Obama “stood tall in opposing the gas-tax holiday.”

Now we know why. Obama must have seen the gas-tax holiday as a chump-change in the wondrous store of campaign gimmicks. When Obama panders, he panders big-time. Witness his proposed “emergency energy rebate” that - on the heels of this year’s $600 per taxpayer stimulus package rebate sent to taxpayers this year - promises additional $500 checks for American workers or $1,000 per family “as soon as this fall.” (Is there an income cap for how Obama defines eligible “working families?” The campaign did not get back to me on that by my deadline.)

To hear Obama, the check is practically in the mail.

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Senator Barack Obama altered his position on Monday to call for tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices as he outlined an energy plan that contrasts with Senator John McCain’s greater emphasis on expanded offshore drilling and coal and nuclear technology.

In a speech here and in a new advertisement, Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, also sought to portray his Republican rival, McCain, as “in the pocket” of oil giants that are profiting from gasoline priced at more than $4 a gallon. And in his speech, Obama called for a windfall profits tax on oil companies to finance rebates for Americans.

At the heart of Obama’s proposals is a focus on fostering alternative energy development by investing $150 billion in emerging technologies and renewable fuels. Seeking to put a million fuel-efficient hybrid plug-in automobiles on the road, he said that he would offer a $7,000 tax credit to buyers, the overall cost of which he did not specify. In addition, Obama said his goal was to have 10 percent of the country’s energy needs met by renewable resources by the end of his first term, more than double the current figure.

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