Republicans Demand an Energy Vote
August 4th, 2008 by NSwiftHouse Republicans kept up the drumbbeat for lower gas prices as speeched continued on the House floor in defiance of the August recess.
23 legislators took to the floor as staffers eagerly led tour groups into the chairs normally occupied by elected officials. Vacationing Americans around the room, visiting their capitol, got a first hand introduction to how government works, or in this case, doesn’t.
More than a call to drill in the OCS or ANWR, speeches were a plea for a vote on the American Energy Act. One after another, legislators asked that the bill be brought to the floor with open rules, giving members a chance to bring amendments and truly debate the viability of the legislation.
If the legislation is such a bad idea, Speaker Pelosi should have nothing to fear from a real vote on the policy.
Newsbusters has this great exchange between Georger Stephanopoulos and Nancy Pelosi:
STEPHANOPOULOS: … You’ve been getting a lot of heat on — for not allowing a vote, a straight up-or-down vote on expanding drilling off the coasts of the United States. Why won’t you permit a straight up- or-down vote?
PELOSI: … What these — what our colleagues are talking about is something that won’t have an effect for 10 years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something as part of an energy package, we’re talking about something. But to single shoot on something that won’t work and mislead the American people as to thinking it’s going to reduce the price at the pump, I’m just not going to be a party of it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Except that it’s not just Republicans calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, is saying there’s going to be a vote. Here he says exactly, there’s going to be a vote. September 30th will not come and go without a vote on opening the outer continental shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can’t be ignored any longer. He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He’s talked to the leadership, and a vote must happen.
As they spoke, each Representative asked that Americans call the Speaker’s office asking for a vote: 202-224-3121.
Rep. Mike Conaway (TX) had four steps to advance real energy policy:
1. Call House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: 202-224-3121
2. Call your member of Congress
3. Write a letter to the editor - your Congressman reads them
4. Call talk radio shows
August 4th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Just after President Bush lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling, a guy from an environmental organization was on CNBC saying that the move “would have no effect today, no effect a week from now, and no effect ten years from now.”
I did a little research on the guy and he was neither a trader nor an economist. He was a political hack who has run PACs for environmental groups.
So, over the next several days, oil had its biggest daily drop ever, its biggest weekly drop ever, and finished July with its biggest monthly drop ever.
The idea that planning new supply, even it won’t arrive for some time, will have no impact on prices now is something that could only be believed by the same people who believe that raising taxes won’t change people’s economic behavior.
There is no way to look at Pelosi’s position, Obama’s position, and here in Colorado Mark Udall’s position, without thinking they are some combination of stupid, poorly educated, or so owned by the Sierra Club and friends that they can not let facts get in the way of their campaign contributions regardless of the damage they cause the nation.
August 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Oh, come on, Ross. This is such a stupid thing to say. Really, now, Bush dropping the executive order caused gas prices to drop? It had nothing to do with the significant drop in demand? I mean, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to note that the price drops dovetail elegantly with the demand drop, and that the demand drop is actually the reason the prices dropped.
Lemme get this straight. You really believe that gas prices fell because, at some unspecified point in the future, somebody might be able to get some oil out of the ground, but definitely not for more than a decade. But anyone who points out that the drop in gas prices was produced by falling demand is “some combination of stupid, poorly educated” etc.
It’d be funny if it weren’t what you really thought.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
“So, over the next several days, oil had its biggest daily drop ever, its biggest weekly drop ever, and finished July with its biggest monthly drop ever.”
Mission accomplished then eh? Does this mean that we can move on to some real issues that might actually effect our energy situation sooner rather than later?
I mean really, apparently we stopped filling the SPR in July as well, did that have an effect on oil prices? Did the focus on the rapant, and sometimes illegal, oil speculation have an effect? Or maybe the fact that millions of Americans drove less as a result of high gas prices, which lowered demand during the warm season…instead of raising it like it usually does?
Of course, none of all that could have *any* effect on oil & gas prices…it must just be a purely “symbolic” (read that as political) move on the part of our hero, Big Oilman himself…Bushy Boy…sure, sure…
August 12th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I actually laughed out loud at that one. The naivete here is absolutely stunning, isn’t it?