Pouring Oil On OPEC's Game Plan

Energy officials want to use U.S. reserves to lower fuel prices

Taxes, crime, education, the environment--these are all salient issues worth airing in the political forum. But in the frigid, snowbound Northeast, what better way to warm the hearts--and hands and feet--of voters during primary season than devising a plan to knock down the skyrocketing price of home-heating oil and gasoline?

And guess what. The Clinton Administration has just such a scheme brewing. Sources tell TIME that Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is quietly but vigorously pushing a proposal that would pour millions of barrels of oil from America's Strategic Petroleum Reserve onto the market in coming weeks. The proposal, which has...

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