President Obama to Tap Into Strategic Oil Reserve?

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Skyrocketing gas prices apparently have President Obama quite concerned. White House Chief of Staff William Daley said Sunday that the administration is looking at all options to combat the issue, including tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) -- 727 million barrels stored away for an emergency.

“All matters have to be on the table when you go through, when you see the difficulty coming out of this economic crisis we're in and the fragility of it,” Daley said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

The national average for a gallon of gas is now $3.38.

“The president is extremely concerned about this,” Daley said. “Our economic team has been working with international organizations to make sure that we're coordinated.”

“The issue of the reserves is one we're considering,” he explained. “It is something that only is done, and has been done on very rare occasions. There's a bunch of factors that have to be looked at.”

Some drivers would like to see the government step in.

“It would be nice if there were reductions maybe, some gasoline taxes,” one driver told ABC News.

But others say the situation is far from dire.

“I think they've got to let the market work,” said another driver. “The strategic oil reserve is there for emergencies -- this is not an emergency.”

Oil analyst Robin West says this is not what the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was built for.

“It was really built to deal with interruption of supply,” West said. “I think that it would be a serious mistake to open SPR now.”

But Americans are being hit hard at the pump, with prices well over $4 per gallon in some areas.

“I need a break from these prices,” a Washington, D.C., driver said. “It's tough for families these days.”

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

Financial Disclosure: Top White House Aides Made Millions

Photo Courtesy - Harvard[dot]edu/Official White House Photo(WASHINGTON) -- The two men now running the White House for President Obama made millions last year from corporations.

In 2010, new White House Chief of Staff William Daley made more than $15 million in compensation and stock from JP Morgan, Boeing, and Abbott Labs, while new White House senior adviser David Plouffe made $1.5 million from consulting and speaking fees, according to White House financial disclosure forms.

Daley was Midwest chairman and head of corporate responsibility for JP Morgan Chase, making $8.7 million, including a $675,000 salary and a $4.8 million bonus.

Plouffe provided consulting services for The Boeing Company and General Electric, whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, President Obama recently appointed to chair a new presidential commission on competitiveness and growth.

The 2008 campaign manager for then-Sen. Obama also received lucrative contracts for speeches he gave to a host of corporate clients with billions of dollars worth of business in Washington, D.C., including the health insurance companies that belong to Medicaid Healthplans of America; members of the American Hospital Association; and the National Association for Homecare and Hospice, which calls itself “the leading voice for home care and hospice before Congress and the White House…actively engaged in molding legislation, as well as being on top of all the late-breaking revisions affecting home care and hospice agencies.”

Plouffe was paid by the Carlyle Group, one of the top private equity firms in the world; Credit Suisse; Fidelity Investment Services; Lockheed Martin; Florida Power & Light Company; Edison Electric Institute; National Propane Gas Association; General Mills, and more.

Penguin publishers paid Plouffe an advance of $575,000 for his book The Audacity to Win. He owns property in Cape Cod, Mass. and a 119-acre farm in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio