[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1914 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1914

  To provide for the sale of light grade petroleum from the Strategic 
   Petroleum Reserve and its replacement with heavy grade petroleum.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 13, 2011

 Mr. Cuellar introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To provide for the sale of light grade petroleum from the Strategic 
   Petroleum Reserve and its replacement with heavy grade petroleum.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Gas Price Stabilization Act of 
2011''.

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act--
            (1) the term ``light grade petroleum'' means crude oil with 
        an API gravity of 30 degrees or higher;
            (2) the term ``heavy grade petroleum'' means crude oil with 
        an API gravity of 26 degrees or lower; and
            (3) the term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of Energy.

SEC. 3. SALE AND REPLACEMENT OF OIL FROM THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM 
              RESERVE.

    (a) Initial Petroleum Sale and Replacement.--Notwithstanding 
section 161 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6241), 
the Secretary shall publish a plan not later than 15 days after the 
date of enactment of this Act to--
            (1) sell, in the amounts and on the schedule described in 
        subsection (b), light grade petroleum from the Strategic 
        Petroleum Reserve and acquire an equivalent volume of heavy 
        grade petroleum;
            (2) deposit the cash proceeds from sales under paragraph 
        (1) into the SPR Petroleum Account established under section 
        167 of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (42 U.S.C. 6247); 
        and
            (3) from the cash proceeds deposited pursuant to paragraph 
        (2), withdraw the amount necessary to pay for the direct 
        administrative and operational costs of the sale and 
        acquisition.
    (b) Amounts and Schedule.--The sale and acquisition described in 
subsection (a) shall require the offer for sale of a total quantity of 
70,000,000 barrels of light grade petroleum from the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. The sale shall commence, whether or not a plan has 
been published under subsection (a), not later than 30 days after the 
date of enactment of this Act and be completed no more than six months 
after the date of enactment of this Act, with at least 20,000,000 
barrels to be offered for sale within the first 60 days after the date 
of enactment of this Act. In no event shall the Secretary sell barrels 
of oil under subsection (a) that would result in a Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve that contains fewer than 90 percent of the total amount of 
barrels in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as of the date of enactment 
of this Act. Heavy grade petroleum, to replace the quantities of light 
grade petroleum sold under this section, shall be obtained through 
acquisitions which--
            (1) shall commence no sooner than 6 months after the date 
        of enactment of this Act;
            (2) shall be completed, at the discretion of the Secretary, 
        not later than 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act;
            (3) shall be carried out in a manner so as to maximize the 
        monetary value to the Federal Government; and
            (4) shall be acquired using the receipts from the sale of 
        light petroleum authorized under this section.
    (c) Deferrals.--The Secretary is encouraged to, when economically 
beneficial and practical, grant requests to defer scheduled deliveries 
of petroleum to the Reserve under subsection (a) if the deferral will 
result in a premium paid in additional barrels of oil which will reduce 
the cost of oil acquisition and increase the volume of oil delivered to 
the Reserve or yield additional cash bonuses.
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