Bush Won’t Tap Oil Reserves to Ease Gas Prices

President Bush rejected suggestions Wednesday that he release oil from the government’s strategic reserve in a bid to ease the price of gasoline, accusing Democrats of “playing politics” over soaring gas prices.

The White House has sought to blame Democrats in Congress for the run-up, accusing them of blocking energy legislation that Bush has said would have eased prices at the pump.

This week, the national average price of gasoline passed $2 a gallon for the first time, and the issue is generating political heat for the president. On Wednesday, higher jet fuel costs prompted American, United and Northwest airlines to raise fares in some markets, following the lead of Continental Airlines, which boosted prices as much as $20 one way.

“I anticipated this three years ago,” Bush told reporters during a photo opportunity at the end of his weekly Cabinet meeting. “I asked my team to put together a strategy to make us less dependent upon foreign sources of energy.... Congress needs to pass the energy plan.”

Experts attribute the dramatic price increase -- an average 54 cents this year for a gallon of regular unleaded -- to a number of factors, primarily the cost of crude oil and the inability of U.S. refineries to keep up with a growing demand for fuel, caused in part by the improving economy.

Democrats accused Bush of misrepresenting both the causes of the price increases and the content of his energy plan.

“Everyone knows it [the energy plan] wouldn’t affect prices in the near term,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “The things that would affect prices in the near term are the president getting on the phone and telling the Saudis and other OPEC members to increase production of oil, quit purchasing oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so that can be made available for gasoline this summer, when people are driving.

“There’s a series of things that this administration could do which do not require any legislative action, and they’ve just generally refused to do them,” Bingaman said.

A group of congressional Democrats has introduced a resolution calling on the administration to permit a limited release of oil from the strategic reserve, up to 1 million barrels a day for 30 days, and possibly for 60 days.

In his remarks, Bush implied that his critics wanted to “empty” the reserve. He also linked the issue to the fight against terrorism.

“The idea of emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ... would put America in a dangerous position in the war on terror,” Bush said.

“We’re at war. We face a tough and determined enemy on all fronts. We must not put ourselves in a worse position in this war. And playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would do just that.”

Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has said it would be premature to release oil from the reserve. But he has called for halting purchases for the reserve to buoy supplies to the consumer market. The Energy Department has said that the reserve, kept in salt caverns along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is nearing its 700-million barrel capacity.

Bush said he “fully understands” how the rise in prices “affects American consumers, how it crimps the budgets of moms and dads who are trying to provide for their families, how it affects the truck driver, how it affects the small-business owner.”

He also argued that Congress should have allowed drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. Opponents of Arctic drilling have argued that it would do nothing to address high prices because it would take years to tap the oil; they also contend that proponents have exaggerated the amount of oil beneath the tundra.

But Bush said: “Had ANWR been passed ... we anticipate an additional million barrels of oil would have been coming out of that part of the world, which would obviously have a positive impact for today’s consumers.”

From his first days in office, energy legislation has been a domestic priority for Bush, a former oil company executive. But his energy bill ran out of steam in Congress, not because of opposition by Democrats, the minority party, but because of a dispute between House and Senate Republicans.

That dispute concerned whether to limit the liability of makers of MTBE, a gasoline additive blamed for contaminating water supplies from California to New Hampshire.

Last year, the bill passed in the House but fell two votes short in the Senate of the 60 needed to end debate. Six Senate Republicans joined 32 Democrats and an independent in opposing a floor vote last year.

Crude oil, which accounts for more than 40% of the price of a gallon of gasoline, has jumped nearly $9 this year, to more than $41 a barrel. Up to $6 of that price reflects market jitters over the stability of future supplies rather than the current market situation, said Mark Baxter, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist U.

Additional oil from Alaska, such as that called for under the administration’s energy bill, would not be the answer to today’s problems, he said.

“If we had ANWR today, and say it produced 600,000 barrels per day of oil, who’s to say the OPEC nations wouldn’t just say, ‘We’re going to cut our quotas by 600,000 barrels per day?’ ” Baxter said. “I would give you the same story line, if you say, ‘Let’s withdraw oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.’ OPEC would probably cut their quotas by that amount.”

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sought Wednesday to hold up a Senate vote on confirmation of Bush’s choice for the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, saying he first wanted to know what specific actions the nominee would take to protect consumers from high gasoline prices.

Times staff writers Rich Simon, James Gerstenzang, and Ashleigh Collins in Washington contributed to this report. Bloomberg news service also contributed.