Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet has an oil deal involving Texas and Louisiana.

The Democrat from Denver introduced legislation Wednesday to lease available space for crude oil in the nation’s four Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites on the Gulf Coast, which would help pay for program’s maintenance and long-term operation.

Bennet is co-sponsoring the bill with Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana.

“This pragmatic solution shows that lawmakers can work across the aisle to craft energy policy that puts money back into people’s pockets,” Bennet said in a statement. “We need more bipartisan efforts in Washington that save taxpayer dollars.”

Cassidy, a medical doctor, added, “If the tanks are empty, let’s put them to use.”

> READ the Strategic Petroleum Reform Act here

The tanks are giant underground salt domes that have been used for the nation’s emergency crude oil reserve since 1977. The domes haven’t been filled to their 727-million barrel capacity since 2009, according to the Department of Energy.

The DOE website says the current capacity is 713.5 million barrels.

A 42-gallon barrel of crude is refined to about 20 gallons of gas, 11 gallons of diesel, plus heating oil and other products. The yields vary.