Over objections from President Bush, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office suggesting the move could cut gasoline prices by as much as 24 cents a gallon.

The White House isn't buying it.

"There is no evidence that [suspending shipments] will affect the price of oil or gasoline in a meaningful way," says presidential spokesman Scott Stanzel.

Stanzel and Bush are right: Suspending shipments into the reserve will have very little, if any, impact on gasoline prices.

Look at the numbers. On average, we pump 70,000 barrels a day into the reserve. Surely leaving that much oil on the market would reduce demand and prices, right?

Wrong. Seventy thousand barrels amounts to 0.35 percent of the 20 million barrels of petroleum we consume daily in this country. That won't even dent prices.

The only rational argument in favor of suspending strategic reserve shipments is financial. If you believe the current price of oil is artificially high and will fall substantially, then it's wise to suspend the reserve program and fill it later with cheaper oil.

On the other hand, if you believe the surge in oil prices is real and that prices will be higher five years from now than today, then we should buy that oil now, when it's cheaper. And that's the more likely scenario.

There's also a third way of looking at it. If you're part of a Congress that has done little to prepare the country for a day we all knew was coming, then voting to suspend the strategic reserve program makes sense because it lets you pretend to be doing something, even though you're not.

—- Jay Bookman, for the editorial board (jbookman@ajc.com).