What ever happened to the oil reserves that the government built up?

I seem to recall that on one occasion the president (Bush Sr) had threatened to release some of the reserve in order to keep the prices down.What ever happened to the oil reserves that the government built up?
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve currently holds 701 million barrels of oil and has a capacity of 727 million barrels of oil. The United States consumes approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day.





So in short nothing happened to it...it is still there. A portion of it was released during hurricane katrina and it has since been restocked.What ever happened to the oil reserves that the government built up?
To add to Ethan E's excellent answer, it is a strategic reserve, ie, it is there for military/industrial use in case oil is cut off by an embargo or something; not to get votes and not to interfere with the economy.
I'll tell you what happened to it!!! Nothing... cause just like everything else the government gets involved with, it's a LIE...





surprised?
They're still reserved. Usually the government releases some during elections.
Bush is keeping them for a rainy day. Bush doesn't really want anything to get cheaper, except interest rates.
The world (including us) has billions of reserves, were all just to insane and corrupt to give a damn
Ask Sadam Hussains sun living in florida:)
Ahhnold is using it to fill up his Hummah collection.
';threaten';. but did bush really release some of the reserve to keep the prices down? not yet.

mineral foundation