By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

Two U.S. senators have called on President Bush to deploy the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

In a letter posted Tuesday, Sens. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, and Chuck Schumer, D-New York, called on Bush to act immediately to help relieve soaring gas prices across the country.

“Americans suffering from skyrocketing prices at the gas pump deserve relief,” Snowe said in a prepared statement. “With oil prices sure to rise even further in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, now is the time to utilize our strategic reserves to soften the blow.”

Hurricane Katrina disrupted on oil and gas supplies, sending prices to record highs of $70 per barrel in U.S trading.

In central Maine on Tuesday, gasoline was selling for a low of $2.52 per gallon in Lewiston for unleaded regular, while highs of $2.68 were seen in Turner and Auburn.

Schumer called on Bush to deploy the petroleum reserve to avoid “economic disaster.

“If there was ever a time for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to be tapped, it would be now,” he said.

Tapping the reserve would assure a continued flow of crude to refineries that are operating, and would help to dampen market speculation that has been driving up both crude and wholesale prices for refined products.

Actually getting the reserve’s oil, however, could prove difficult. The same flooding and power outages affecting refineries along the Gulf Coast could delay shipments of crude. The reserve’s oil is held in salt caves near the Louisiana coast.

Katrina caused a shutdown of Gulf Coast oil production, beginning over the weekend as the hurricane prompted an evacuation of oil production platforms. The offshore platforms produce an estimated 1 million barrels of crude oil daily.

The Coast Guard said Tuesday that seven such platforms were adrift in the Gulf of Mexico after the storm.

Louisiana’s Offshore Oil Port, the nation’s largest oil importing terminal, has also been closed by the storm.

Besides the lost production of crude, flooding caused by Katrina shut down scores of refineries from Louisiana to Alabama. Those refineries produce about 10 percent of the gasoline consumed daily nationwide.