One reason not to sell off the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Scott McPherson
in Politics and government, influenza and infectious diseases
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2 Comments
As I write this, the Congressional majority's talking heads on CNN are apoplectic over the Bush Administration's decisions a) not to stop putting oil into the Strategic reserve, and b) not to sell oil from the reserve. As one can imagine, the debate is shaped along mostly partisan lines.
There are worse things than price hikes on gasoline. What could be worse than $4, or even $5 gasoline?
Try this: No gasoline at all, for days at a time. And that is precisely what we will have in a pandemic of any severity: Little petroleum to go around and flashbacks to the days of 1973 and 1979. Many of us will never forget those even/odd days when we could or could not buy gas. After Katrina, I recall sitting in line to buy fuel for an hour, simply because supplies coming into Florida were depleted. Or maybe it was in 2004 after the Big Four hit Florida. What specific year is irrelevent; what matters is that I saw something this new century that I had not seen in thirty years, and I was amazed at what I beheld.
There are many who are openly condemning of this Administration's handling of pandemic preparedness. This, despite the knowledge that this Administration has done more to combat global infectious disease than any other presidential administration in modern history. This is the true Bush Legacy: Real, funded efforts to stop HIV/AIDS in Africa, and concrete moves to prepare America for an eventual flu pandemic without crying WOLF or otherwise appearing to go overboard. Surely there have been missteps along the way, but let us recall that nothing was happening in Washington on panflu preparedness -- nothing -- until Bush read The Great Influenza cover-to-cover.
On the African front, Franklin Graham and Bono can share in the credit for converting Bush into a believer. Barry himself may take credit for the Bush Administration's turnaround on pandemic flu. Barry had been meeting with HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and others in the Cabinet ever since his classic tome hit print. But Barry, himself a Bush critic, said this to the Los Angeles Times in 2005:
“One lesson is to absolutely take it seriously,” Barry said. “I’m not a great fan of the Bush administration, but I think they are doing that. The Clinton administration I don’t think paid much attention to it as a threat.” (bold mine)ttp://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/16/nation/na-bushread16
So the Bush Administration's decision to keep the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in place represents forward-thinking of a kind not expected by his adversaries and, yes, outright enemies. It means, folks, there are more important things than expensive gas. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve today holds about a 55-day supply of oil. That equates to an eight-week reserve. That we expect pandemics to come in two-to-three-month waves and that the SPR could see America through two months of the first wave of a pandemic is not coincidental. Those who are running for office, regardless of party and regardless of office, would do well to remember that fact. Attacking Bush on a lack of panflu preparedness and then attacking Bush for not selling off the SPR is a train wreck and the two cannot be reconciled logically.
Reader Comments (2)
Yes. Bush jr administration will be put in history textbooks for: a) an invasion of a derelict country (Afghanistan); b) for bombing and invading Iraq, with hundreds thousands of victims; c) for re-enable torture; d) for abandoning an entire town to its course (New Orleans).... The worst of the worst for the entire world. Further, after the Katrina catastrophe he tried to gain some of popularity with the pandemic preparedness effort and in purchasing useless drugs ... The economy collapsed... This is Bush jr and his wonderful administration... At least for people outside US. Sincerely, GM
My friend,
I won't debate you on the Administration's failures in foreign policy and economics. But the Afghanistan conflict has wide bi-partisan support here, and even Obama said we need to escalate troop deployment there. Who knows how many lives -- including Italians -- have been spared because the West acted to disrupt the terrorist networks that clearly and indisuptably originated in Afghanistan?
As for Katrina: Assessing blame for that fiasco rests squarely on the shoulders of the idiot mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin; the equally-incompetent then-governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, who was thankfully defeated for re-election by one of the brightest people in the nation, Bobby Jindal; and the people of New Orleans themselves, who continuously elected incompetent, corrupt politicians who fleeced them at every turn and by whose actions guaranteed the levees would not hold; and then the Bush Administration, in that order. IN THAT ORDER.