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**Written by Doug Powers

Gas prices continue to rise, the election is only eight months away, and there are almost 700 million barrels of sweet and sour crude in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Some Democrats have already called for the SPR to be tapped like a keg of Guinness at a frat party, Nancy Pelosi among them. Pelosi believes that tapping the reserve might be necessary in order to lower gas prices in an election year in a last-ditch effort to win back the gavel help boost the economy, but she also seems to believe that merely bluffing about tapping the reserve could do the trick:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday endorsed tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to combat rising gas prices – breaking ranks with her top deputy in the House, who is wary of the idea.

Pelosi said that using the oil reserve was her “personal favorite” short-term fix to not only lower gas prices but also send a message to speculators in the oil markets, whom Pelosi blamed for the increasing costs. The oil reserve, Pelosi said, needs to be “prominently on the table.”

“Every time oil has been diverted or taken from the [Strategic Petroleum Reserve] — one or the other or both — the price at the pump has gone down,” she told reporters. “But even if you don’t subscribe to that, that at least puts a question mark to the speculators that you might do this.”

For some reason I’m reminded of last April when the Obama administration formed a task force to root out those who try to artificially manipulate oil markets. Where are they?

Look for Pelosi to launch her petroleum reserve head-fake to speculators by first claiming “we have to tap it so we can find out what’s in it.”

**Written by Doug Powers

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