Kerry asks for release of home heating oil

www.unionleader.com The Associated Press

JOHN KERRYHAMPTON - Calling the Bush administration "frozen in the ice of indifference," Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry said the president's failure to tap home heating oil reserves puts New Hampshire jobs in jeopardy.

In a speech prepared for delivery Friday, the presidential hopeful said the state faces a similar scenario to 1991, when a spike in energy prices before the Gulf War helped push the region into a severe recession.

"What's happening today sounds all too familiar. It's like the movie 'Groundhog Day,'" Kerry said in remarks prepared for the Hampton Democratic Committee's Jefferson-Jackson dinner. "But New Hampshire can't afford six more weeks of a snowy winter if the Bush Administration is frozen in the ice of indifference."

In a letter being sent to Bush on Friday, Kerry urged the president to release oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to cope with increasing oil prices in New England.

He said anecdotal evidence suggests that high oil prices have drained more than half a billion dollars from New England's already sluggish economy. The prospect of war with Iraq, decreased production in Venezuela and low stocks have led to prices 52 percent higher than last year, he said.

"I'm greatly concerned over how higher oil prices, and especially the rise in heating oil prices, may harm the overall economy, small and large businesses and family budgets in New England," he wrote.

Kerry was among a bipartisan group of senators who sent a similar letter to Bush last month. In that letter, the group noted that about 69 percent of the nation's 7.7 million households using heating oil are in the Northeast, and that the reserve was created to help families through such rough times.

New Hampshire Republicans Sen. Judd Gregg and U.S. Rep. Charles Bass have been among those urging Bush to release the oil reserve.

Last week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham dismissed a request by a group of New England heating oil companies that the government make available some of the 2 million barrels of heating oil from the Northeast reserve.

He told senators that emergency oil stocks will not be used to dampen soaring energy prices unless severe supply shortages arise.