Some members of Congress and the Administration propose a 2 million barrel heating oil reserve. This sounds good, as most regulations do, but it will have exactly the opposite effect. It is an expensive proposition to purchase and store heating oil. Suppliers will, therefore, be induced to lower their own supplies and its attendant expense in anticipation of the government release of the supply. Such a challenge recalls the crude oil regulations of the 1970's.
Suppliers typically turn their supplies five times a season.
The government would do so less often. In effect the government would be taking out of the suppliers hands 10 million barrels of capacity, but the government would be supplying only 2 million barrels of capacity, in its place. The resulting shortage and price increases would produce calls for tighter regulation and bigger government reserves. One can't help but recall the demands for the nationalization of the oil companies during the shortage of the 1970's. Other anti-free market proposals such as using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to control prices are always either too late to help or counterproductive.