America has a huge stash of emergency oil
(CNN) - Three days before Christmas in 1975, President Gerald Ford signed a law creating the United States' first emergency stash of crude oil. At the time, OPEC, the cartel of oil-producing nations, had a stranglehold on the world's supply of crude. Today the United States is one of the world's largest producers and a major seller, not just a buyer, of oil. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve contains 645 million barrels the world's largest backup oil supply. They damaged the core of Saudi oil production and have temporarily knocked out 5.7 million barrels a day.