Perhaps no national security strategy reinforces the ability of the US to defend itself and maintain reasonably normal economic activity during a disruption in oil supply more than the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The Department of Energy calls the emergency crude oil reserve, created in 1975 in response to the Arab oil embargo 2 years earlier, "the nation's first line of defense against an interruption in petroleum supplies."Since 1985, SPR has been tapped twice to supplement supply and minimize economic damage during an oil shortage: in 1991 (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in Kuwait) for 21 million bbl, and in 2005 for 11 million bbl (after Hurricane Ka...