Clinton signs bill to boost 'energy security'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Clinton Thursday signed into law legislation extending the life of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and helping people heat their homes this winter.

MESSAGE BOARD Rising oil prices

The new law, which won congressional approval in October, will extend the life of the strategic reserve for three more years and permanently establish a separate reserve of heating oil for the Northeast.

"This will help provide an insurance policy against supply shortages and price spikes in winters and assist consumers who rely on heating oil to heat their homes," Clinton said in a statement.

The National Weather Service has forecast a colder winter than last year for the Northeast. At the same time, stocks of home heating oil in New England are down 70 percent from a year ago. The Energy Department is predicting consumers could pay home heating bills that are 50 percent higher in some locations compared to last winter.

The Northeast reserve, which the Clinton Administration recently set up on a temporary basis to ease tight heating oil supplies, holds 2 million barrels of heating oil, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve contains about 570 million barrels of crude.

The new law will make it easier for the White House to withdraw oil from the two stockpiles in an emergency.

The law allows heating oil to be released from the Northeast reserve when either a regional supply shortage of "significant scope and duration" exists, or the difference between the price of crude oil and heating oil increases by more than 60 percent over the five-year average for the winter months (mid-October to March), for seven consecutive days.

The law also gives the Energy Department the authority to purchase oil for the national petroleum reserve from small operators of so-called "stripper" wells when crude prices fall below $15 a barrel.

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