Schumer presses for fuel help

www.rochesterdandc.com By Joseph Spector Democrat and Chronicle

(January 27, 2003) — Sen. Charles Schumer renewed calls Monday for the Bush administration to consider using the federal government’s oil reserves to help Americans cope with the rising cost of gasoline and home heating oil.

Schumer said that Rochester already has seen a 34 percent increase in gasoline prices and a 23 percent spike in home heating oil costs from last year.

Releasing millions of gallons from the federal government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- or even just threatening to do it -- would spur global oil producers to sell more on the open market and stop the increase in oil and gasoline prices, Schumer said as he stood in 2-degree weather near gas pumps at a Brighton gas station.

“Residents of Rochester are being socked with a quadruple whammy this winter: a soft economy, rising unemployment, higher gas and heating oil prices, and bitter weather conditions that threaten to make heating bills even higher,” Schumer said.

“Unfortunately, with the oil strike in Venezuela an continuing unrest in the Middle East, we might not see relief for these high oil prices unless something is done quickly.”

The reserve, a cache of some 600 million barrels of oil, was created in 1975 to help America respond to oil emergencies. Schumer argued that the Clinton administration helped check rising prices in 2000 by releasing 300 million barrels, and said Bush should do the same.

The average gas price in Rochester was $1.18 per gallon last year. On Monday, the average price was $1.58 per gallon, Schumer said. The average cost of residential heating oil was $1.44 per gallon last week, a 33-cent increase from last year, according to the Department of Energy.

E-mail address: jspector@DemocratandChronicle.com.