Who needs 4 more years of this?

It's still all about oil for Big Dubya. According to a new report in The Observer:

"After 11 September 2001, President Bush said he wanted to increase the oil in the reserve from 600 million barrels to 700 million barrels by the end of 2005... The US administration has been paying top dollars - of more than $30 a barrel - for 11 million barrels of oil... The administration has stuck to the plan, despite a slump in oil inventories at refineries to within 3.4 per cent of the 28-year-lows reached in February.

'In effect, the Department of Energy's [reserves] programme has transferred 10 million barrels from private sector inventories into the [reserves] over the past two-and-a-half months at significant cost to taxpayers,' said Democratic senator Carl Levin.

"The US has also been urging India to create a similar reserve in salt-lined caverns that can hold 45 days of emergency stocks

'They've continued filling the reserve - which is crazy, putting the oil under ground when its needed in refineries,' said Leo Drollas of the Centre for Global Energy Studies. "

What's Bush's game? He is paying top dollar - effectively maintaining high prices - to pump up US reserves by an extra 100 million barrels before he can be voted out. Taxpayers are footing the bill, of course, but who is making a big, fat profit out of all this? Guess who - Bush's oil baron buddies. As usual.