Ben Zaharian was the Secretary of Energy. He gave a speech regarding the perils of drilling the north slope. During the Q&A, he said that the idea of tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to ease the price of gas had merit.
Katie Witt asked C.J. Cregg during a briefing whether this represented a shift in the Bartlet Administration's policy. C.J. replied that a bad idea in June wasn't necessarily a bad idea in December when heating oil was in demand.
His statement might have forced him to resign because only a few months later Bill Trotter was the Energy Secretary.[1]