OREANDA-NEWS. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Lisa Murkowski went on the offensive today against an effort in the Senate to sell off 101mn bl from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to help pay for a highway bill.

Murkowski (R-Alaska) is fighting a provision in the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy (DRIVE) Act that aims to raise $9bn to fund road projects by selling off oil in fiscal years 2018-2025. That revenue estimate would equate to an average sale price of $89.11/bl.

The Senate is debating the highway bill now. Approval of the measure has been complicated by an amendment to resurrect the US Export-Import Bank, which as of 1 July had not been re-authorized, as well as a failed attempt to add language that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act.

Murkowski warned selling oil from the reserve would be "an error of historic proportions" that would leave the US vulnerable to an energy crisis.

She said such a sale "would be like cashing in our home insurance policy to pay for repaving the driveway."

But with lawmakers eager to fund road projects back home, Murkowski will face an uphill battle to block oil sales from the reserve.

The Republican staff on Murkowski's committee today issued a new report showing that over the last three decades the federal government has drawn down a total of 166mn bl in the wake of international emergencies, natural disasters, as well as test sales and efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit.

The proposed sale to fund highway projects would be larger than the 58.9mn bl released by presidential order in the wake of Operation Desert Storm, Hurricane Katrina and the Libyan civil war. It also tops the 68.9mn bl withdrawn in 12 oil exchanges because of a variety of supply disruptions, from hurricanes Gustave, Ike and Ivan to a Seaway pipeline blockage.

"A sale of 101mn bl would be unprecedented in both its duration and volume," the report said.

The DRIVE Act would provide three years of guaranteed funding for the highway trust fund. The existing funding mechanism expires on 31 July.

The bill calls for selling 4mn bl from the SPR in 2018; 5mn in 2019; 8mn in 2020; 8mn in 2012; 10mn in 2022; 16mn in 2023; 25mn in 2024 and 25mn in 2025.

The SPR, as of 24 July, held 695.1mn bl of crude, 266.1mn bl of which was sweet and 429mn bl was sour.