It started under the Carter administration and was one of the United States' responses to the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and 74. Most of them are in Louisiana but we have several caverns in Texas, where I am. They are not big tanks above the ground. They're kind of like a giant onion underneath the earth. One imagines someone turning on a spigot and the oil just flows.
Somebody actually pushes a button.
The equipment is all electronically controlled. So we started bringing in this oil back in the 70s. One time under President Bush during the Gulf War period and then two times this year. We've never taken a large volume of oil out and I remember the market got all excited at one point because some 16 million barrels were going to be withdrawn from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Well, the United States consumes more oil than that in one day.