Pelosi Offers To Cut Oil Drilling Deal With GOP, But What Will She Really Gain?

The members of the House GOP have already rejected this proposal but it would be a good idea to look into it to see exactly what motivated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to try this.

From an article by Josiah Ryan at CNS:

Pelosi said she has a “comprehensive plan” for energy, which includes releasing oil from the 700 million barrel federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), creating a federal Renewable Electricity Standard that would require oil companies to pay billions of dollars to invest in clean energy resources – and allowing limited offshore drilling.

First off, those "billions of dollars" are going to come from what we consumers will be paying at the gas pump. In other words, Speaker Pelosi's proposal will result in even higher gas prices.

Second, that part about "invest in clean energy resourses." Would that happen to include the CLNE Wind Farms that Speaker Pelosi owns so much stock in?

The main reason that the GOP is rejecting this proposal is because it did not come through a committee to the House floor. Instead, it is a back-room, closed-door deal that has some very sinister undertones for Speaker Pelosi. If this particular bill went through, Pelosi would stand to makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from her investments in CLNE.

GOP Prepared To Cut Oil Drilling Deal With Pelosi
Josiah Ryan
CNSNews.com
August 18, 2008

Drill, Drill, Drill! And An Open Letter To Nancy Pelosi By House Republicans

This story has got big enough legs and more than enough endurance to go all the way up to the election. That's good for Conservatives like me, but bad for libs. Why? Because the high cost of gasoline is not an issue that the libs and Dems can just spin away. It's here and it's right out in the open for everyone to see. There is, quite simply, no way to hide it, not even behind those idiotic words: "I'm trying to save the planet."

To give you a good example of how out of touch the Dems are with the American people, check out this exceprt for Lawrence Kudlow's latest column:

While Republicans on the House floor shouted "vote, vote, vote" and "lower gas prices," the Democratic majority turned off the lights, cameras, and microphones. Determined Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell offered unanimous-consent requests to vote on lifting the ban on deep-water exploration, and the Democrats objected. When McConnell asked Democrats if they'd overturn the ban at $4.50 a gallon, they replied "no." When he raised the price to $5, $7, and $10, they cried "no," "no," and "no."

Even if the American people had to struggle with paying $10/gallon for gasoline, the Democrats made it clear they still would not take a common sense approach to lowering prices, i.e. increasing supply. Their excuse? "It would take seven years to see the effect." Apart from the fact that President Bush's announcement that he was removing the executive ban on domestic drilling resulted in an immediate psychological effect that brought down prices, we should also keep in mind that had we done this seven years ago, we would be seeing the effects today. The longest journey begins with the first small step.

Lawrence goes on:

Polls suggest that two-thirds to three-quarters of the nation wants to drill. To wit, while a just-released Obama campaign ad attacks McCain as a tool of big oil, McCain has taken his first-ever lead in a Rasmussen tracking poll. There is a voter revolt going on, and it reminds me of the anti-tax rebellion that lifted Ronald Reagan into office twenty-eight years ago. Is the conventional wisdom about to be swept away? As Republicans press home the drill, drill, drill message, might they pick up seats in Congress this year? And might the national clamor for a more realistic and balanced energy policy -- one that includes more oil, natural gas, clean coal, nuclear, and the alternatives of wind, solar, and cellulosic -- carry John McCain to a convincing victory over Obama? Without even realizing it, the GOP drilling offensive has become a new contract with America. And it appears to be working. The public is putting aside global warming and choosing instead new-energy production, a stronger economy, and more job creation. Voters want growth, not austerity. They want Ronald Reagan, not Thomas Malthus. And by resisting this grassroots call, the Democratic party is digging itself into one of the biggest political dry holes in history.

Sound like empty cheerleading rhetoric? Think again:

New economic statistics highlight the damage done by the unprecedented oil-price shock. Only a year ago real gross domestic product was growing at 4 to 5 percent. Then came the dramatic rise of energy prices and down came the economy. GDP contracted slightly late last year and rose a miniscule 0.9 percent in this year's first quarter. And although real growth picked up to nearly 2 percent in the second quarter, that number is suspect since the government does not count surging import prices from food and energy. Wall Street blames everything on the housing slump and the sub-prime credit crisis. Of course, these are significant. But the drop in housing starts, sales, and prices has been going on for nearly two years, without crunching down the economy. It's the oil shock that has brought us perilously close to recession. In fact, despite a slight rise in GDP, nonfarm corporate payrolls have declined for seven consecutive months while private payrolls have fallen for eight straight months. A year ago the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. Today it's 5.7 percent. Topping it off, the inflation rate has climbed from 2 to 4 percent over the past year. Right now the recession call is still an open question. But the economic damage caused by skyrocketing energy prices is a no-brainer.

But the Dems in Congress appear to have no brains in this issue at all. High energy costs effect everything. Food, clothing, consumer goods, tourism, travel. As gasoline prices go up, so do these other prices.

We need to get the Dems out of Congress and make sure that Barack Obama doesn't gain the White House in November. If the latter happens and he gets a rubber-stamp Congress, we will be in for the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Drill, Drill, Drill Is Working
Lawrence Kudlow
RealClearPolitics.com
August 5, 2008

---

And here we have an open letter to Nancy Pelosi from Republicans John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Adam Putnam, Eric Cantor, and other members of the House Republican Conference:

On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families. For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies. Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote. This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur (see transcript on the reverse). In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media. Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote. We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families. We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.

Anyone think that Nancy Pelosi is going to respond to this well-reasoned letter? Or is she going to continue screwing the American people at the behest of the Socialist left?

Nancy Pelosi's Delusional Stance On "Trying To Save The Planet"

I swear, the Dems never cease to amaze me with how incredibly naive they are in their own beliefs and with their sadly mistaken idea that we will beleive anything they say. Nancy Pelosi's comments to the Politco about why she refuses to allow a vote on domestic production of energy is proof positive of that.

When asked why she was blocking a vote on a bill that is overwhemlingly supported by the American people, she said: "I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet."

Well, Charles Krauthammer over at TownHall looks into that and finds that by forcing Americans to buy foreign oil, she is doing more harm to the environment than if we were producing oil here at home.

From his column:

Places like Nigeria where chronic corruption, environmental neglect and resulting unrest and instability lead to pipeline explosions, oil spills and illegal siphoning by the poverty-stricken population -- which leads to more spills and explosions. Just this week, two Royal Dutch Shell pipelines had to be shut down because bombings by local militants were causing leaks into the ground. Compare the Niger Delta to the Gulf of Mexico where deep-sea U.S. oil rigs withstood Hurricanes Katrina and Rita without a single undersea well suffering a significant spill. The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling -- essentially drilling down, then sideways -- allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the U.S. has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.

So, what is Pelosi and company trying to save us from? A healthy economy? Lower energy costs? She certainly isn't trying to protect the environment, not by a long-shot.

More:

Does Pelosi imagine that with so much of America declared off-limits, the planet is less injured as drilling shifts to Kazakhstan and Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea? That Russia will be more environmentally scrupulous than we in drilling in its Arctic? The net environmental effect of Pelosi's no-drilling willfulness is negative. Outsourcing U.S. oil production does nothing to lessen worldwide environmental despoliation. It simply exports it to more corrupt, less efficient, more unstable parts of the world -- thereby increasing net planetary damage.

But Pelosi would never let facts get in her way. She apparently believes that she knows best despite the fact that doesn't even know what the facts are. One of her party's favorite lines to parrot is "We can't drill our way out of this!"

But apprently, the Saudis can drill for us.

Check this out:

Democrats want no oil from the American OCS or ANWR. But of course they do want more oil. From OPEC. From where Americans don't vote. From places Democratic legislators can't see. On May 13, Sen. Chuck Schumer -- deeply committed to saving just those pieces of the planet that might have huge reserves of American oil -- demanded that the Saudis increase production by a million barrels a day. It doesn't occur to him that by eschewing the slightest disturbance of the mating habits of the Arctic caribou, he is calling for the further exploitation of the pristine deserts of Arabia. In the name of the planet, mind you.

Not only are the Dems completely out of touch on the energy issue, they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes as well.

It won't work. Too many of us can see right through it. They offered us bio-fuels and we got higher food and gas prices as a result. Is this the "common sense approach" to lower energy costs that Pelosi promised back in 2006? That promise was nothing more than a bold-faced lie.

Here's more:

The other panacea, yesterday's rage, is biofuels: We can't drill our way out of the crisis, it seems, but we can greenly grow our way out. By now, however, it is blindingly obvious even to Democrats that biofuels are a devastating force for environmental degradation. It has led to the rape of "lungs of the world" rainforests in Indonesia and Brazil as huge tracts have been destroyed to make room for palm oil and sugar plantations. Here in the U.S., one out of every three ears of corn is stuffed into a gas tank (by way of ethanol), causing not just food shortages abroad and high prices at home, but intensive increases in farming with all of the attendant environmental problems (soil erosion, insecticide pollution, water consumption, etc.). This to prevent drilling on an area in the Arctic one-sixth the size of Dulles Airport that leaves untouched a refuge one-third the size of Britain. There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700 billion oil balance-of-payment deficit, a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes, growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin. Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart shouting: We don't care. We come to save the planet!

Clearly, the Dems are caught up in their own delusions and expect us to blindly follow them. No, thanks. I'll stick with the facts of reality.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Drilling And Blissful Ignorance
Charles Krauthammer
TownHall.com
August 1, 2008