Cheney: "Efforts to shut down the flow of oil could conceivably have a significant impact."

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/22/magazines/fortune/cheney.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007112517



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No, if there's anything about the economy that keeps Dick Cheney up at night, it's the prospect of sabotage aimed at disrupting the oil market, he told FORTUNE.

"Clearly the world depends on a global supply of oil, and that will continue to be true for some considerable period of time. Efforts to shut down the flow of oil could conceivably have a significant impact."

So when President Bush's 2008 budget was coming together, with the goal of balancing the budget in five years, Cheney nevertheless insisted on a $947 million line item: a speedup of the flow of crude into the Texas and Louisiana salt caverns housing the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

...

A trademark concern of Cheney's is the surprise high-impact event that leads to chaos. Preserving a sufficient national oil supply in the event of a terrorist attack fits right into that portfolio.

"He's a big supporter of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," and would like to see an even faster flow of oil into the system, says Lazear.

The discussions between Cheney and other officials center less on what an attack might look like than on what a disruption to world markets would do, he adds. "He believes it pays to buy insurance," Lazear says. "And oil is 'liquid' - in both senses of the word. Holding some of the U.S.'s wealth in the form of oil," Lazear notes, is also a financial safety net.