Gore calls for release of assets from oil reserves; Bush appears on 'Regis'

HOLLYWOOD, Maryland (CNN) -- Aiming strong rhetoric at overseas oil producers and domestic "big oil" concerns, Vice President Al Gore proposed Thursday that the federal government tap into the nation's 570-million-barrel strategic oil reserve in an effort to drive down the costs of gasoline and home heating oil.

The reserve, which is set aside for emergency use, has been tapped only once before -- during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Gore proposes tapping the government's emergency petroleum reserve to force down oil prices before winter arrives

"Families ... all across the country are wondering how they are going to pay for heat this winter," Gore told an intimate crowd at the Burch Oil Co. depot in St. Mary's County, Maryland, on the state's Eastern Shore.

Analysts have estimated that the price of home heating oil, natural gas and gasoline will spike with the onset of the cold season. Home heating oil supplies dried up in the Northeast last winter, and some families found themselves shelling out two or three times the price per gallon for heating oil than they had become accustomed to paying.

Many families were forced to curtail spending in other areas to meet their heating needs, and the crisis became a subplot to the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary last February.

The scenario stands to be repeated this season, observers say, and could be extended to other regions across the country that rely on heating oil for winter-time heating. Natural gas supplies have also dwindled as demand driven by economic good times has risen steadily.

"I'm not satisfied when the oil to heat your home becomes more of a luxury than an affordable necessity," Gore said.

VIDEO Gore: Tap U.S. oil reserve Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)    VIDEO Gore, Bush fight over energy policy Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MESSAGE BOARDS Presidential race 2000 Rising oil prices     ALSO New England congressmen turn up pressure on heating oil (09-20-00) Oil futures hit 10-year high (09-20-00) Crude oil prices retreat (09-19-00) Clinton says oil prices won't affect economy in near term (09-15-00)   OPEC IN BRIEF Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Founded 1960 11 Member Countries who coordinate their oil production policies in order to help stabilise the oil market and to help oil producers achieve a reasonable rate of return. Supplies over 40% of world oil Controls around 78% of total proven world crude oil reserves Secretariat based in Vienna Source: OPEC

Gasoline prices also threaten to stay high, with some minor downward adjustments seen since the summer's prices and supply crisis in the Midwest.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the nation's largest oil refiners shouldered much of the blame for the looming problems with gasoline and home heating oil, Gore said.

OPEC, the Democratic presidential hopeful said, should be held to their summertime promise to boost oil production. Major oil companies, he continued, should immediately curb the "profiteering" urge that Gore said was hard to resist in an age of limited crude distribution from international sources.

"OPEC nations have an obligation to live up to those promises," Gore said. "Big oil needs to stop the profiteering. We know what is going on here, and we have to end it."

Among the vice president's short-term solutions was his proposal to siphon oil from the strategic reserves in "5 million barrel" parcels, until the price of gasoline and home heating oil is stabilized at a "reasonable" level.

Gore also called on Congress to create a permanent home heating oil reserve for the Northeast -- which depends on home heating oil more than any other region -- to be tapped when prices rise, and for the appropriation of $400 million in emergency funds to help low-income families cope with extreme price spikes.

Gore's plan would also grant small home heating oil distributors like the Burch operation some $600 million in tax credits to encourage them to increase their supplies.

The campaign of GOP candidate George W. Bush has warned the administration not to concede tapping the reserves just to help Gore's campaign. But, Bush's connections to the oil industry, and those of his running mate Dick Cheney, have been called into question by the Democrats.

Bush was once an oil executive, as was Cheney, who recently resigned as chief officer of the influential Texas-based Halliburton Co. oil firm.

At a campaign stop in Cleveland early Thursday afternoon, Bush assailed Gore's suggestion as "bad public policy," and accused the vice president of trying to manipulate a national strategic asset for political purposes.

The reserve, Bush said, "is an insurance policy meant for sudden disruptions of the oil supply or for war. It should not be used for short-term political gain ... at the expense of national security."

Rather, Bush said, plans must be implemented to make the United States less dependent on oil imports. "I would like to aggressively explore our own continent for oil and natural gas."

Bush also called for an expansion of electricity generating capacity, as well as for boosts to hydroelectric power generating projects.

"On the foreign policy front, we need to work with our friends and allies in OPEC as well as energy producing countries in our own hemisphere to ensure greater stability in our oil markets," he continued.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council at the White House, said early Thursday that President Clinton has said "all options [to drive down prices] are on the table," and "the two or three options that Vice President Gore is calling for today are very much among those options that President Clinton does feel are on the table and is considering."

Clinton ignored reporters' requests for comment on the Gore proposal Thursday morning.

Bush visits TV kingpin

Thursday morning, Bush followed up on the success of his syndicated talk show debut earlier this week -- a candid one-on-one with Oprah Winfrey -- with an appearance on ABC's "Live with Regis" show, taped in New York.

The Texas Gov. strode on stage sporting a dark shirt and matching silk tie -- a look often associated with show host Regis Philbin, but not so with Bush, who prefers standard blue and gray suits when out on the campaign trail.

"He gave Oprah a kiss, but he wore my shirt and tie," Philbin said.

Philbin's show is routinely watched by an estimated 5 million women every day.

Bush's willingness to appear on both programs in the same week highlights his push to appeal to women. The target audience for both shows is mostly female, and Bush has made a concentrated effort this week to try to lure some women voters away from Gore.

On ABC's "Good Morning America," the candidate's wife Laura predicted her husband would "get a lot of the women's vote."

"I think George actually appeals very much to women voters," she said. "He has, in Texas, where people know him the best, carried the women's vote, even when he ran against Governor (Ann) Richards."

Asked by Philbin to say in one sentence why he should be president, Bush replied with two, saying, "I'm going to call upon the nation to usher in a period of personal responsibility. I want each and every American to know for certain that I'm responsible for the decisions I make and each of you are as well."

Also on the program was a former participant in CBS television's "Survivor," a highly rated prime time "reality based" television show that saw a number of people "stranded" on an inhospitable tropical island, and forced to fend for themselves.

"I was fascinated to see who was going to survive," Bush told "Survivor" participant Susan Hawk. "It was kind of like me," he joked.

Sticking to the blueprint

Later, in Cleveland, Bush continued his campaign's week-long promotion of a blanket plan to provide life-long assistance to members of the middle class. He spoke specifically of his plan to allow individuals to invest a small portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into the stock market.

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Bush touts Social Security plan Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The precarious health of the Social Security retirement system, he said, will "never get solved if we continue to have the same old politics ... of fingerpointing and name-calling."

As president, Bush said he would work to find a bipartisan solution that would keep the Social Security trust fund solvent for years to come.

His proposal to allow the investment of some 2 percent of an individual's Social Security payroll taxes into "safe" investment vehicles would begin that process, he said. In the meantime, the Texas governor said he would set aside $2.3 trillion of the projected federal budget surplus to shore up Social Security accounts.

"The money in the Social Security trust generates a paltry amount in return," Bush said. "The payroll tax is not the government's money, it is your money."

The money to be garnered from individual investment accounts, he continued, "is no longer the government's money. It is somebody's portfolio, somebody's asset."

CNN's Jonathan Karl, Ian Christopher McCaleb, and the Associated Press contributed to this report