Tommy Denton

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Much of the nation's attention will be concentrated on today's Super Bowl showdown between the Colts and "da Bears," so conscious consideration of distant wars and various sorts of near calamities is unlikely, at least until after the game.

When that happens, though, expect renewed debate over more mundane matters like peace, graft in high places, the overpopulated field of presidential candidates vying for the 2008 nominations, terrorism, "American Idol" and planetary pollution.

One recurrent sore point almost sure to arouse public ire, however, will be those yo-yo gasoline prices that have figuratively whiplashed drivers for more than a year now.

Depending upon the day, a barrel of oil in the last week or so bounced between $50 and $57. In the last year, that same barrel exploded in price to about $80, with the price of a gallon of gas spiraling to more than $3.

Given what President Bush once described as a national "addiction" to petroleum, no one should be very surprised that Americans' aggressive consumption of gasoline has contributed to an imbalance between the voracious demand at the pump and the ostensibly shriveling supply.

One researcher who has expressed some surprise is economist Thomas Palley, who runs the progressively oriented Economics for Democratic and Open Societies Project in Washington, D.C.

Palley's surprise, however, appears to lie in his published observation that throughout 2006, when prices soared, "there were no significant interruptions and oil demand actually fell in industrialized countries."

Such a turn of events, if Palley's assessment is accurate, would suggest either a suspension of the classic economic law of supply and demand, or something else.

The culprit, Palley suggests, very well could be the Bush administration's manipulation of the strategic petroleum reserve.

After all, even the International Monetary Fund recently reported that U.S. oil prices appeared to be politically manipulated, falling just prior to elections, as in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Maybe, maybe not, but Congress certainly owes it to the American people to investigate.

With an administration that has a long, consistent record of practicing crony capitalism, exhibited by the pattern of granting no-bid contracts to administration-friendly defense and construction firms for Iraq and by similar deals for disaster relief companies that failed so shamefully in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the suspicion is warranted.

As Palley wrote last week in an essay for TomPaine.com, the key to ascertaining manipulation of the petroleum market lies in demand, supply and oil storage capacity.

In the last three years, Palley wrote, oil prices increased quickly. The ensuing tight market allowed even tiny increases in demand to create a heavy upward push on prices. As the administration accelerated additions to the strategic reserves during that period, oil prices rose from about $30 to $70 per barrel.

Commodity speculation then picked up on Wall Street. When the speculators entered the market, spot prices on crude oil exceeded the futures price. But the spot market requires taking delivery, which means finding storage. Price-escalating federal purchases were pumped into giant caverns, opening private storage tanks available to the speculators trying to corner the market.

"Over the last month," Palley wrote, "spot oil prices have been tumbling. The reason is that the market has finally run out of storage capacity, which means that all oil produced must now be immediately sold -- and that has driven oil prices down. This suggests there has never been a supply shortage warranting $75 oil, and absent the administration's dealing, oil prices might not have risen as they did."

Even with steady additions to the strategic reserve in the last several years, President Bush announced in his State of the Union speech that he would purchase enough stock to double its size, from 700 million barrels to 1.5 billion barrels. Who benefits?

A national energy policy with integrity would protect the public's energy needs at least as effectively and transparently as the current administration has demonstrated time and again its fealty to the financial fortunes of the energy industry.

That's not to argue against the strategic petroleum reserve. Congress, however, should take a good, hard look to make sure that resource is serving the larger public interest and not merely being manipulated in the narrow service of crony capitalism.

Denton's column appears in the Sunday and Tuesday editions of The Roanoke Times.