Editorial: Strategic move will help with pain at pump

As acronyms go, SPR is not one you are likely to be familiar with. And if you take away the letters and add the words, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you might still be scratching your head.

The SPR, as energy aficionados like to call it, is where the United States squirrels away millions of barrels of oil. To be exact, the U.S. currently has a record 727 million barrels of oil stashed at the SPR, the largest stockpile of oil in the world. The Department of Energy estimates the stash is worth about $17 billion.

You might wonder why the U.S. feels the need to stash all that oil, and it does seem a bit excessive, but we must remember we get a lot of our crude from unstable countries like Libya. And with the turmoil unfolding every day in Libya, it's good to have millions of barrels of oil stashed away for a rainy day.

The DOE announced last week that is was releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the SPR, which will hopefully make a difference in our lives at the local gas pump. While the complicated balancing act tied to the supply and demand of crude oil is better left for an economist to explain, suffice it to say there is a connection between the price of crude oil and the price we all pay at the pump. The two never seem as connected as they should be, but adding oil to the supply on the market will help the price of a barrel drop, and eventually that should mean a drop in price for a gallon of gas.

Oil prices have slowly trickled down in the past month or so, with the decision to tap into the SPR moving the price for a barrel of oil to $91. Meanwhile, gas prices have also dropped according to AAA, which said the national average was at $3.98 a gallon in May. The price for a gallon of regular gas was at $3.61 at the end of last week, so we are moving in the right direction.

Of course some have already attacked President Obama for tapping into the SPR, including one of the most powerful Washington D.C. special interest groups around, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A spokeswoman for the Chamber's Energy Institute called Obama's decision "ill-advised."

While we would agree the SPR was created to serve as a safety net for emergencies or natural disasters, the truth is our economy, and the average family's budget, remain in grave condition. We don't know too many people who are not affected when gas reaches $4 a gallon, and while $3.50 a gallon is no bargain, it's certainly a step in the right direction.

Obama's decision to tap our oil reserves was not easy, but we think it was the right move at a time when families are struggling just to make ends meet. The last thing anyone needs is higher gas prices, and we can't pretend the conflict in Libya is going to play out anytime soon.