[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 167 (Tuesday, November 10, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S7905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to 
talk about two issues that are of particular importance to me. When 
most look at me now, they think about energy and more typically about 
Alaskan energy. I am not going to disappoint tonight. I would like to 
speak to that, but I would also like to speak this evening about the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the SPR. We have been talking about it a 
lot of late. It has been viewed as a source of revenue--a pay-for, if 
you will--with certain measures that we have seen of late, whether it 
be the transportation measure that we have in front of us, the budget 
deal that was executed a couple weeks ago, or other measures.
  I want to take a few minutes this evening to talk about the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve. I will start by first addressing what I will call 
the flagship SPR. It is the very important stuff, if you will, within 
the Reserve, and that is the crude oil. I call this the flagship 
because there are five product petroleum reserve sites in the 
Northeast. We have product reserve sites for gasoline, distillate, and 
home heating oil, but these are relatively small reserve sites. There 
are about 2 million barrels total. I think their effectiveness is 
probably more controversial. But the flagship SPR is truly--when we 
think about the impact, the import to our economy and to a level of 
stability, the flagship Strategic Petroleum Reserve occupies giant 
underground caverns along the gulf coast.
  I had the opportunity to visit the site of one of our Strategic 
Petroleum Reserves. It holds some 695 million barrels, and they are 
ready to cover our Nation's net imports for several months if global 
energy markets should spiral out of control.
  The comforting reality about these flagship SPRs is that, through 
thick and thin, these reserves are rarely ever tapped. They have 
offered a measure of security and stability that I think is unique in 
the history of global commerce.
  Amid higher levels of domestic production and lower levels of 
imports, a number of reforms are being considered for the SPR by the 
Department of Energy now. There has been a lot of discussion. There is 
a study underway by the DOE, and a discussion about upgrading the 
distribution capacity of the SPR is underway, and it clearly has merit.
  The North American energy landscape has changed so quickly and so 
dramatically that the volume of oil we can pump out of the Reserve is 
greater and potentially much greater than the volume of oil we can 
actually move to refineries. This is something we need to understand 
and study more, but it is something that--we have congested waterways, 
we can look at reversed pipelines and so on, ways that we can figure 
out how we can move this oil more readily if we so need it.
  In the measure we have just executed with the budget proposal, there 
is funding set aside for Strategic Petroleum Reserve maintenance and 
life extension, hopefully for marine terminals, but effectively 
recognizing that we need to make sure that our SPR actually functions 
as it is intended. That study is underway. We will learn more, 
hopefully in the spring, but the imperative to have a functioning, 
workable SPR is one that goes to national security, really, from an 
overall stability argument. I remain opposed to suggestions by some 
that we should use the Reserve to pay for completely unrelated programs 
or that we simply sell off the entire stockpile, as some have 
suggested.
  As I wrote in my July report of this year called ``A Turbulent 
World,'' we have drawn down SPR only on a limited number of occasions. 
In the entire history of the Reserve itself, only approximately 166 
million barrels have ever left the storage sites for any reasons. So 
166 barrels have been sold off over the course of the life of the 
Strategic Petroleum Reserve for exchanges, emergencies, tests, deficit 
reductions. Everything that we have ever done that has involved a sale 
of the SPR totals just about 166 million barrels. That is this graph 
over here.
  Over here are the new proposed sales to the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve. If we add up the barrels this Congress--the 114th Congress--
has already committed to sell for SPR modernization, the Bipartisan 
Budget Act, the DRIVE Act, the Transportation bill, and then a bill 
over on the House side, the 21st Century Cures Act, we are looking at a 
total of 279 million barrels to be sold off. That is 40 million for SPR 
modernization, 58 million for the Bipartisan Budget Act, 21st Century 
Cures Act is 80 million, and the highway bill is 101 million. We would 
be selling off 279 million barrels total. Think about that--in the 
entire life of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 166 million barrels 
sold off. In one Congress, what we are proposing is 279 million 
barrels. It is quite eye-catching.
  These numbers matter. The SPR is designed to provide 90 days of net 
import protection. It is a pretty simple math equation we are dealing 
with. If we import more, we need more in storage; if we import less, we 
need less. Currently, net imports are about 5 million barrels per day. 
Therefore, the bare minimum we need in storage is 450 million barrels. 
So if we execute all of the sales the 114th Congress has either 
approved or is considering, we dip below the bare minimum that is 
required--the 450 million barrels--by the end of the 10-year window. I 
am going to be releasing another report on the cumulative impact of all 
these sales on the integrity of the Reserve, so we should be seeing 
that in a few days.

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