Opening up the strategic oil will not lower the price of oil. As you mentioned, the US consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day. There are only 700 million barrels in the strategic reserves. And the world consumes about 80 million barrels a day. Say we were to release 1 million barrels of oil per day for 90 days. We increase the world supply by 1%. The price of gas will probably go down by a nickel. After 90 days, the price of gas will still be high and we will have lost 90 million barrels (15%) of our strategic reserve. It would be like putting a bandaid on a gushing wound. It is a short term solution (is it even a solution if it only lowers gas 5 cents per gallon??). It is a short term solution to a long term problem. I kind of would not mind seeing this happen because it would show people that drilling in ANWR will not solve our energy crisis (ANWR could produce 1 million barrels a day for 10 years) Thankfully, both presidential candidates (yes, even McCain) are against drilling in ANWR.
The strategic oil reserves are there for a purpose. They should not be used unless absolutely necessary. We are not even close to that point yet. Over the long term, the price of oil is only going to go up and up and up.
If you really want to know how to reduce the price of oil, I just need to quote you one fact. Out of the 20 million barrels of oil the US consumes, 11 million barrels are used for car gasoline. We have the technology TODAY to drive cars that use NO gasoline at all.
Most cars are the road are entirely gas powered. Why is this? Everyone knows that with gas prices as high as they are today (just wait until they are $6-$7/gallon in 1 or 2 years), hybrid cars are cheaper than gas powered cars. Why is there not a hybrid model of every car produced? Why isn't every car purchased a hybrid? How about a plug in hybrid where electricity from the grid can charge the battery in addition to the gas engine? If you could buy gas for 60 cents per gallon, would you? Well that is about how much electricity for a plug in hybrid or all electric car costs to go the equivalent distance of 1 gallon of gas. If we have all electric cars that can go 100mph, 200 miles on a charge, recharge in 10 minutes, and electricity that is 1/7 to 1/10 the price of gasoline, why doesn't everyone buy an all electric car? The cost of gasoline will more than make up for the slightly higher purchase price in just a few years. The only market segment where it does not make as much sense to have a hybrid/plug in hybrid/all electric car is used cars. And that will change as soon as there are more used hybrid/plug in hybrid/all electric cars on the used market.
The technology is there to make the US energy independent tomorrow. And we can do it with the 5 million barrels of oil we produce today. That would really lower the price of oil.