Obama July 7 2008: "The strategic oil reserve, I think, has to be reserved for a genuine emergency. You have a situation, let's say, where there was a major oil facility in Saudi Arabia that was destroyed as a consequence of terrorist acts, and you suddenly had huge amounts of oil taken out of the world market. We wouldn't just be seeing $4-a-gallon oil (gas?). We could see a situation where entire sectors of the country had no oil to function at all. And that's what the strategic oil reserve has to be for."

Obama Aug. 4 2008, "We should sell 70-million barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for less expensive crude, which in the past has lowered gas prices within two weeks."