As gasoline prices again reach near-record highs in Iowa, Senator Tom Harkin says the Bush Administration is ignoring his letter urging action to relieve the bounding pump prices. Harkin, a Democrat, says President Bush needs to put pressure on OPEC nations to increase, not decrease, their oil output. Harkin is also calling for a reduction in the amount of oil being pumped into the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves. Harkin says “Both of those, I think, would go a long way towards at least tempering the prices and maybe even bringing them down a little bit.” Since December, gasoline prices are up a reported 29-cents a gallon. In Iowa, gas prices have risen a dime in the last month alone. Harkin says the point of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to fill it when prices are low and release barrels when prices, particularly at the pump, are high, and not the other way around. Last week, OPEC announced it would cut production by four percent, further squeezing strained oil supplies and driving the cost of gasoline higher. Harkin says “By continuing to siphon barrels out the supply, average Americans are paying the price while oil-producing nations and big oil companies reap the profits.”
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