Handling Of U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve Under Scanner

Republican lawmakers on Monday asked the U.S.  government for more information on its oversight of the country's emergency petroleum reserve, seeking details on Obama administration moves to test its capabilities and expand it to include gasoline.

Republicans in general are opposed to use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for anything but an emergency and called for a briefing on the Department of Energy's management of the resource.

In particular, they noted that the Obama administration did not include the new gasoline reserve in its 2014 and 2015 budget requests.

"As the summer driving season approaches and tensions in some of the world's most resource-rich areas and elsewhere show no sign of abating, the obligation ofCongress, and especially this committee, to remain vigilant in its oversight of DOE's stewardship of this important program is clear," leading Republicans on the U.S.House energy committee said in a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

The letter called for a briefing by May 27 and was signed by House energy committee chairman Fred Upton, of Michigan, committee vice chairman Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, and other senior members of the panel.

The department surprised oil markets in March when it said it would hold the first test sale of crude oil from the reserve since 1990. The sale was held to help assess the government's ability to transport oil from the reserve located inLouisiana and Texas to local refiners as the domestic shale oil boom leads to an upheaval in energy logistics.

This month the department also announced its plans to create a million-barrel gasoline reserve in the Northeast, after Superstorm Sandy left east coast motorists without fuel in 2012.

Among other things, the lawmakers asked the department to identify any problems with the emergency reserve uncovered during the test sale and to explain under what authority it plans to establish the gasoline reserve.

Analysts say gasoline would be more expensive to store than crude. The Department of Energy has said the gasoline reserve would be funded through the SPR's account.

Established in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo, the SPR currently holds about 692 million barrels of crude oil in underground salt caverns along the Gulf Coast.

The department already operates a million-barrel Northeast home heating oil reserve, originally established by the Clinton administration in 2000.

(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Andrew Hay)