(May 13, 2008)—Both the House and Senate Monday are expected to approve, with bipartisan support, legislation directing the Bush administration to halt the shipment temporarily of about 70,000 barrels of oil a day to the reserve.
Mr. Bush has refused to do so.
He argues that this small amount of oil won't impact prices and that for security reasons he wants to increase the stockpile to its capacity of 726 million barrels.
It's now about 97 percent full, equal to nearly two months of oil imports.
Many Democrats and Republicans say it doesn't make sense for the government essentially to purchase oil for a reserve that's nearly full when crude is costing more than $120 a barrel.
Meanwhile, high gasoline prices are spawning songs, signs and symbolic acts of rebellion across the nation.
Americans facing rising gasoline and diesel prices are cycling about, saddling up, singing out and, sometimes, going to extremes.
Dozens of Alabama students are bicycling up to 10 miles each way to their rural high school,
An Indiana man was arrested for belting out a protest song from the roof of a convenience store,
A sign-maker in Kentucky is riding his horse on business errands, and
A Tennessee sheriff is investigating a more disturbing protest: a slain deer hanging from a gasoline station sign.
A Purdue University professor who teaches a class on the sociology of protest says most protesters aren't just working toward the goal of lower gas prices.
Rachel Einwohner says she believes they're also making a statement "about their collective identity, as environmentalists or however they see themselves."
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