Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today applauded passage of a measure designed to help reduce record-high gasoline prices.

In a 97-1 vote, the Senate approved a Democratic proposal that would put on the market an additional 70,000 barrels of oil per day by suspending contributions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The SPR, which stores an emergency supply of oil, is already 97 percent filled.

“While everyone agrees that having oil in reserve is extremely important, nobody can make the case that filling the reserve makes sense when oil prices are sky-high,” Bingaman said. “Suspending the SPR fill will keep the government from competing for oil in the marketplace and driving up fuel costs for American consumers during the summer driving season.”

The measure was made part of a flood insurance bill, which also passed today.

Prior to voting on the SPR, the Senate rejected a Republican proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Bingaman pointed out that if the country wants to get serious about domestic drilling, it would take steps to require production on the millions of acres – onshore and offshore – that have already been leased but are not being drilled.

“It’s not that we haven’t leased federal land for exploration and production. We have leased large areas of federal land, and we are leasing more all the time. We need to get these oil and gas resources into production,” Bingaman said in his Monday floor speech.