Washington, D.C. – Crude oil prices hit a record high of $56.10 today, hours before the Senate is slated to vote on a motion to strip ANWR instructions from the Budget Resolution. Prices climbed after a report showed sharper-than-expected declines in gasoline and heating oil inventories. Crude prices for April delivery reached $56.35 – 68 cents above the previous record of $55.67 set last October – before retreating to $56.10, according to a Reuters wire story. Chairman Domenici’s statement: Oil prices climbed to a new record today on the news of low inventories for gasoline and heating oil. OPEC ministers met in Iran today and decided to raise their production ceiling to 27.5 million barrels a day. That does nothing for our prices. OPEC is already producing more than 29 million barrels a day. Oil prices are climbing toward $60 a barrel, as analysts predicted it would. Gasoline prices today hover 1/10 of penny below record prices and will undoubtedly climb tomorrow in the wake of record prices and the inventory report. If my colleagues in the Senate needed any further evidence of the need to produce more of our own energy, they have it. We must act and we must act now. If we do not defeat this amendment today, I fear history will show us paralyzed by inaction in the face of economic peril. ###