Markey to Bush: Live Up to Your Promise to “Jawbone OPEC"

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Contact: Select Committee, 202-225-4081

Markey to Bush: Live Up to Your Promise to “Jawbone OPEC”

Letter to Bush on Visit to Saudi Arabia Encourages Near-Term Increased Production to Lower Gas Prices

WASHINGTON (May 15, 2008) – In a letter to President George Bush today, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) asked the president to live up to his campaign promise from 2000 to “jawbone OPEC” into producing more oil when he visits Saudi Arabian leaders tomorrow. This follows a strong rebuke by Congress for the president by passing legislation that would stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, another near-term way to reduce prices at the pump, which reached a new record high today of $3.77 per gallon.

The letter is available HERE.

“While consumers are getting the shakedown at the pump, the president should ask the sheiks to release more oil into the marketplace,” said Rep. Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. “Congress has already passed a bill against his objections to give near-term relief, and now the president has a chance to show he is not out of touch with the economic strain gas prices are putting on American families.”

The letter notes that Congress has already passed fuel economy standards that will lower demand in the long-term, but that near-term measures are needed to bring down prices and thwart out-of-control speculation in the market.

The letter notes that Saudi Arabia alone could increase production by 1 million barrels of oil a day, which would “exert downward pressure on prices in the near-term.” Since President Bush took office, OPEC’s production has stayed relatively flat, even as global demand has skyrocketed.

The letter recalls that during the 2000 presidential campaign, then-Governor Bush told voters that if elected he “would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. . .use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.” The letter also says then-Governor Bush stated in 2000 that the next president “ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots. . .And the President of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price.”

“The president could have already taken an aggressive stance on our nation’s oil reserves, but he didn’t, forcing Congress to instruct him to do so,” said Rep. Markey. “Tomorrow he has a new opportunity to make good on a campaign promise to ‘jawbone OPEC’ into producing more oil, and should back up his tough talk with tough action.”

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