MISHAWAKA – The United States should stop adding to its emergency supply of oil and release some of it to help lower gas prices for consumers, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly said here Friday.

Donnelly, D-Granger, is among nearly 60 co-sponsors of a bill in the House of Representatives that would stop the United States from adding to something called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The reserve is a supply of oil that the United States keeps on hand in case of emergencies.  It was tapped, for example, after Hurricane Katrina, when the monster storm devastated oil platforms along the Gulf Coast.

The bill Donnelly’s co-sponsoring, H.R. 5473, calls on the government to stop buying oil for the reserve.

Donnelly said the bill’s supporters will try and get it on the House floor as soon as possible.  At 727 millions of barrels of oil, the reserve is at 96 percent capacity, Donnelly’s office said.

But the government keeps adding to the reserve, the bill’s supporters say, which takes oil off the market and keeps the price up.

“This makes no sense at all, because we’re competing with our working families when we do so,” Donnelly said.

By halting the purchase of oil for the reserve, the price at the pump could drop 25 cents, Donnelly said in an April 24th letter to President Bush.

In that letter, and in the parking lot of the Marathon gas station at Edison and Grape roads Friday, Donnelly called for the release of 20 million barrels from the reserve. It’s an idea that’s been kicked around by various members of Congress. That could add another 25- to 50-cent reduction in the price of a gallon of gas, which was $3.63 Friday morning at the station where Donnelly spoke.

Donnelly said releasing the oil would target speculators who invest in oil futures and drive up the price.

“Put these reserves onto the market in certain levels, which would in effect take the speculators legs right out from under them,” he said. “We’d like to see the speculators get it right between the eyes.”

The Bush administration opposes the idea.

“The purpose of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to provide the United States with oil in the event of a severe disruption of supply,” White House secretary Dana Perino said during a media briefing Thursday.  “It has been ineffective when it has been used to manipulate the price in the past. “The rate at which the reserve is filled doesn’t have an impact on oil supplies, Perino said, “as this oil equates to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of daily world consumption.”

But tapping the reserve has been able to affect the price in the short term, said Tom Kolza, chief oil analyst for the New-Jersey-based Oil Price Information Service.

It did happen in 2000 when then-President Clinton first threatened and then subsequently sold oil out of the Strategic Petroleum reverse,” Kloza said. “And whether one attributes it to coincidence, the price of crude oil did drop.”