Bush sees no quick fix for high gasoline prices

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Tuesday there was no quick fix to lowering record fuel prices and that oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be saved for supply emergencies.

"The SPR is for emergencies," Bush told reporters at a White House news conference. He said "there is no immediate fix" to lowering record-high fuel prices.

Several U.S. lawmakers called on the White House this week to release some of the 706 million barrels of crude held in the reserve in order to put more supplies on the market and help lower oil and gasoline prices.

"Four-dollar gasoline, bogged down in a war in Iraq, the economy entering a recession, the stock market down more than 15 percent since January, the housing market in crisis, banks failing, the highest inflation in almost 30 years, and he still doesn't think we're in an emergency?" asked Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, who wants the president to release 500,000 barrels of oil a day from the reserve for six months.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters on Capitol Hill he would consider legislation requiring the administration to release oil supplies from the stockpile.

"Well, I would like to do that, yes, just like we did to tell him to stop putting it in," said Reid, referring to legislation passed by Congress in May that ordered the administration to end oil deliveries to the reserve.

Bush believes more production is the answer. He said if Congress passed legislation to boost U.S. oil output that would change the "psychology" in the energy market about concerns over future oil supplies, which in turn would lower prices.

Bush on Monday lifted the White House's almost two-decades-old executive order that banned oil drilling along most U.S. coastal states and called on Congress to end its separate drilling moratorium.