Campaign 2000: Who's Right About Oil?

To hear Al Gore tell it, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the oil-industry candidates, the men with Texas crude flowing through their veins. But in reality it is the Democrats who have the clout to meddle in the petroleum market. Last Thursday, Gore proposed that the U.S. control rising oil prices by tapping a small portion of the national Strategic Petroleum Reserve. A day later the Clinton Administration announced that it was releasing 30 million of the 570 million bbl. now stockpiled in salt caves along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. The idea, said Energy Secretary Bill...