The Obama administration is considering the release of oil from the U.S. strategic reserves, and Little Paul Ryan was of course dismissive of the idea on This Week with George Stephanopoulos today:
Rep. Paul Ryan said this morning on “This Week” that the idea of releasing oil from strategic reserves to drive down domestic gas prices was "political pixie dust in an election year.”
“I call it the political pixie dust in an election year. It really doesn’t do a lot,” said Ryan. “Instead of begging the Saudis to sell us more of their oil, what our budget does is says let’s go and explore more of our own oil.”
And yet, it worked the last time! Rep. Ryan's response to this imaginary problem? "Drill, drill, drill!"
Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, suggested that access should be granted to “oil that is locked on public lands by President Obama.”
“Let’s open up the Keystone pipeline to bring Canadian oil into our country to dramatically reduce our dependency on foreign oil. It creates jobs here in America. It lowers gas prices, increases supply, ” said Ryan. “And just by passing this legislation, you’ll improve the prices in the futures market, because you’ll see that all this new American-made energy is coming online. Unfortunately, the president is standing in the way of all of those kinds of reforms, and so he’s resorting to what I call these sort of policy gimmicks that in the past really haven’t done a whole lot to change the outcome.”
And yet, the Keystone pipeline neither creates many jobs, nor is its oil likely to lower prices. It's for export to other countries. By the way, here's that little stroll down memory lane from June 2011:
News of the oil release sent gasoline tumbling 14 cents a gallon in the futures markets. That’s the equivalent of about $56 million a day in savings at the gas pump — or about $20 billion a year, according to Peter Beutel, and oil analyst a Cameron Hanover. In New York trading crude oil was down $4.01 to $91.40 a barrel, more than 20 percent below peak levels of $114 hit in early May.
But Paul Ryan says it didn't really help, so I suppose I have to believe his lyin' self.
