Releasing an equivalent amount of oil from the reserve for a short period of time will help keep fuel supplies adequate, not just for the Gulf Coast area, but for all the United States.
We have between 1 to 2 million barrels of day of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico that's been shut down because of the hurricane, ... I think a very good case can be made today that some retailers have taken advantage of that and have begun to gouge the American people.
If there is a silver lining in this tragic situation, it may be that our country understands how fragile our energy sector is. ... We can't just get our oil and gas from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico. We need to diversify our domestic oil resources.