Recently the Bush Administration asserted that numerous documents about changes in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fill policy being requested by the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee would be withheld citing "deliberative process privilege." Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the senior Democrat on the committee indicated that he would ask the Department of Energy (DOE) for more documents relating to its shift in SPR fill policy. Levin has also asked Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham the number of documents he was asserting deliberative process privilege over and warned of a subpoena if his agency didn't respond. White House communications on SPR fill policy are among the documents being withheld under the claim that “they constitute or reflect confidential White House communications." Levin released a report this month exposing that the Bush administration radically altered the existing model for filling the SPR despite recommendations against the change by DOE staff. According to the report the policy change removed a tremendous amount of oil from the market last year and contributed to crude oil prices hitting a 12-year high.