Posts with the tag 'energy policy'
I guess his handlers have seen some polling showing McCain and the GOP clobbering Obama and his Democrats on this issue:
In An Interview With The Palm Beach Post, Obama Said He Would Support Offshore Drilling:
Obama Said He Would Be Open To Offshore Drilling Because He Wanted A “Comprehensive Energy Policy That Can Bring Down Gas Prices.” “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said today he would be willing to open Florida ’s coast for more oil drilling if it meant winning approval for broad energy changes. ‘My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,’ Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. ‘If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage - I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done,’ Obama said.” (Michael C. Bender, “Obama Would Consider Off-Shore Drilling As Part Of Comprehensive Energy Plan,” Palm Beach [FL] Post, 8/1/08)
But Obama Has Vehemently Opposed And Derided Offshore Drilling:
Just A Few Days Ago, Obama Called Offshore Drilling A “Scheme.” Obama: “Now the latest scheme is well, we’re going to drill offshore. Now, I want to be absolutely clear to everybody about this. If I thought that I could provide you some immediate relief on gas prices by drilling off the shores of California and New Jersey , I understand how desperate folks are. I met a guy who couldn’t go on a job search that lost his job, couldn’t go on a job search because of the high price of gas. Just couldn’t fill up his tank. I met a teacher in South Dakota who loved her job as a teacher on an Indian reservation, she had to quit because the drive was too far, it was taking up too much of her paycheck. I know how bad people are hurting. So If I thought that by drilling offshore, we could solve our problem, I’d do it.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At Campaign Event, Springfield , MO, 7/30/08)
As Matt noted recently, Obama’s “bounce” from his “Teach me, please” foreign tour had dwindled, and with Gallup’s tracking now showing Obama and McCain tied for two straight days, Team Obama is probably starting to get worried…though I doubt, at this point, that Obama is. While Obama does have to real solid political “nuts and bolts” troopers on his side, he seems to believe he’s the Chosen One Destined to Save the World.
As I’ve been saying, if “story” (in the children’s fairy tale sense of the word) is most important, than Obama gets sworn in on January 20th…if, on the other hand, the election turns on competance, then we’ll have ourselves President McCain come January. The Gallup tracking is a good poll, as far as polls go, and while it will warm GOP hearts to see it tied for a while, we can expect it to fluctuate around a bit. When Obama selects his VP he might get a bounce, but so might McCain when his VP selection is announced. Ditto with the respective conventions. But the fact that Obama has only very temporarily ever opened up what can be considered a lead (ie, a poll lead outside the margin of error) shows that there are grave doubts about Obama in the general populace, and this is the are McCain can exploit - especially as we get closer to the vote - to derail the Obama express.
As it relates to offshore drilling, only the most dyed-in-the-wool liberal thinks its the wrong idea - in fact, more than that, one has to be a downright fool to say we shouldn’t. If you’re going to have a plan to get America to be all or mostly energy independent, expanding domestic production of oil is a vital piece of the puzzle - not as a permanent solution, because the solution is to find an alternative to oil, but as part of the bridge between oil and alternative. McCain sees this, Obama didn’t - untill pressed to it by the hard facts of life, and the risk of a loss on his own part.
The problem here is not so much that Obama is slow off the mark on these common sense ideas, but that he has to be under threat to his own success before he’ll move. Again and again, only the risk to his own political prospects makes him ditch the liberal/left ideology and deal with facts as they are. This is the recipe for weak President who will be the laughingstock of the world, as our enemies exploit his weaknesses and our friends shake their heads in wonder that we managed to elect another Jimmy Carter. America should not place itself at risk just because one guy is telegenic and speaks well in a set piece campaign rally.
UPDATE: NRO’s The Corner has an eyewitness account of what happened when the Democrats cut and ran from the energy debate:
It’s too bad they’ve turned off the cameras and microphones in the House of Representatives because the Republicans are orchestrating an excellent political scene. As I was making my way over to the House chamber, I could hear the crowds inside chanting, “Drill! Drill! Drill!” Families, staff members and press were sitting in the gallery space above the floor listening to one speech after another - there were even some families and staff members sitting down on the floor - when one of the members came to the floor and said,
“The Capitol Police are going to be closing the Chamber in a few minutes, which means all of you are going to have to leave. But we’re not going to let that happen. Instead, we want everyone in the gallery - yes, everyone - to come down to the floor so they can’t kick you out of the Capitol. Members will be coming up to escort you downstairs right now.”
And sure enough, one member after another starting bringing groups of us down to the floor. The place was packed and people continue to come into the chamber as members were speaking without microphones from the central pit in front of the dais. The atmosphere reminded me of a session of Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons. People were shouting out from the crowd that they wanted to Democrats to come back to debate this issue, members were requesting the President to exercise his constitutional right to request the House to come back from recess to debate gas prices, and when I left the floor five or six Congressmen were hosting a press conference outside the chamber.
According to one speaker, forty-eight members had come to the floor to speak for a total of more than five hours.
Can you believe this chickens*** nonsense? Using the cops to clear the floor? Turning off the microphones? Never in the course of American history has there been a more cowardly act than these Democrats - Obama’s Democrats - running away rather than dealing with the people’s business….and the fact that they ran away gives us more understanding of what Obama is up to. He knows he’ll be crushed on the oil issue, and thus wants out of it…the House Democrats, on the other hand, are afraid to move either way for fear of angering the kook left or the center…
Tags: energy policy, John McCain, Obama Deceptions, oil price
August 2nd, 2008
We were wondering just how we were going to get some traction for the House races this fall:
Do-Nothing Democrats Vote to Adjourn House of Representatives Without Taking Action to Lower Gas Prices
Putnam: “It’s Time Democrats Put Their Boarding Passes Back in Their Pockets”
WASHINGTON – Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL), Chairman of the House Republican Conference, issued the following statement shortly after the House of Representatives voted 213-212 – with no Republicans voting in the affirmative – to adjourn for five weeks in August and September without taking action to lower gas prices and break our dependence on foreign oil:
“The Democratic Congress should be held in contempt for voting to skip town without dealing with America’s energy crisis.
“Democrats are out of touch, out of excuses, out of support and out of time. Americans are hurting. Independent polls show they overwhelmingly support House Republicans’ all-of-the-above energy solutions.
“It’s time Democrats put their boarding passes back in their pockets and get to work by voting on the American Energy Act.”
As NRO points out, this is a Godsend to the GOP - its the perfect “kitchen table” issue and the GOP is entirely on the side of Joe and Jane Average on this issue. As with the Obama campaign, the only thing I can figure is that Pelosi and Co figure they’ve got their House majority sewn up and there’s no worry about what might happen in November. Of course, just as with the Obama campaign, we have to rate the Democrats as having the advantage in keeping their majority in November’s election…but there’s nothing for sure, and the GOP only needs a net of 19 to take an absolute majority…but even a GOP gain of 10 would give the GOP de-facto control over the House (with the remaining conservative and centrist Democrats scared to death of crossing the GOP). Meanwhile, if there was ever a year for Democrats to expand a majority, 2008 is it…so even a one seat gain by the GOP would be a crushing loss for the Democrats, given the political circumstances at the dawn of Campaign ‘08.
I’ve been observing politics for a long time now, and I’ve never seen a party so sure of themselves as the Democrats are. We’ll find out in November if its well-founded, or whether hubris and arrogance turned likely victory into defeat.
Tags: Do-Nothing Democrats, energy policy, House Democrats, House GOP, Nancy Pelosi, oil price
July 31st, 2008
…but will Congress take the next step to lower gas prices?
President George W. Bush said today he’s lifting a presidential ban on drilling for oil and natural gas on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, setting up a showdown with Congress over a separate ban it put in place in the 1980s.
“Today I’ve taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration of the OCS,” Bush said in a statement at the White House. “This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action by the U.S. Congress.”
Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress rejected the president’s call, saying the move to end the moratorium would have no effect on prices and better options are available.
The Democrats once again reveal their stupidity and their hypocrisy. Steny Hoyer, who has come out opposing Bush’s actions today, said the following last week:
Now, of course, bringing new resources to market might have, hopefully will have, and we want them to have a reduction in prices.
Why do Democrats want gas prices to stay high? They haven’t proposed anything to address the energy problems we’re facing… All they know how to do is blame Bush for want to do something to lower gas prices.
Tags: Democrat hypocrisy, Democrat incompetence, energy policy, offshore drilling ban
July 14th, 2008
In a follow-up to a previous post, I submit for your approval a primer of how to ensure that we remain enslaved to third-world tinhorn dictators, jihadists and other whackos like Ahmadinejad and Chavez:
First, take a means of harvesting our own oil:
U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit ruled Thursday the agency had acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in 2005 by giving Savoy Energy LP of Traverse City a permit to drill an exploratory well near the Au Sable River’s south branch.
The proposed wellhead would be located in the Huron-Manistee National Forest about three-tenths of a mile from the Mason Tract, a 4,679-acre wilderness area prized by anglers and other outdoor recreationists.
Forest supervisor Leanne Marten said when approving Savoy’s application that the project wouldn’t significantly harm the environment and the company would be required to keep noise to a minimum.
Next, take two enviro-whacko groups whose true aim is to ensure that the United States ends up a third-rate power and a third-world conglomeration of collectives, reduced to living in squalor in thatched roofs, and for good measure bring along a willing accomplice whom they’ve shamed into acquiescing:
Two environmental groups, the Sierra Club and Anglers of the Au Sable, sued the government to halt the drilling. Joining the suit was Tim Mason, whose grandfather, auto executive George Mason, donated the original 1,200 acres to the state upon his death in 1954 and asked that it be maintained as wilderness.
Then, get an activist leftist puke of a judge who sees things the way they do:
But the judge ruled the Forest Service didn’t consider how degrading the area could harm tourism,
Next, find a spotted owl or a caribou. If there are no spotted owls or caribou in the area, find another obscure species of flora or fauna to prop up as a defenseless cute critter who will suffer a woeful existence and/or disappear from the face of the earth if development takes place. Never mind that it won’t be the case. In trying to accomplish such a noble cause as destroying the United States, one must never let the truth get in the way of crippling the U.S. economy. The end, after all, justifies the means
“[The judge]…said the agency did a “woefully inadequate” job of evaluating how the drilling might affect the Kirtland’s warbler, an endangered songbird that nests in the area.”
And that, my friends, is how to ensure that we become a third world, third-rate nation, courtesy of your local friendly environmentalist/socialist whacko.
Shakespeare’s Henry VI was incomplete in his assessment that what was needed in the world was first to “kill all the lawyers.” He would have been more prescient if he included the radical environmentalists in his calculations.
Tags: energy policy, Environmentalism
July 12th, 2008
Excellently illustrated recently in a debate between Donna Brazile (who is actually a very smart woman, but she’s got little to work with these days) and Bill Bennett on CNN’s Situation Room, as noted by Catholics in the Public Square:
WOLF BLITZER: If you had been at that news conference, Bill, and you had a chance to ask one question, today, what would you have asked, if you were a reporter?
BILL BENNETT: I think when he brought up Chicago I would have said “why are you to the left of NARAL, Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein when it comes to abortion? Are you really there?” Not that it’s the only issue in the campaign, but I gotta question the guy’s moral judgment, who doesn’t see a problem with killing a baby after it’s been born after eight months.
DONNA BRAZILE: But he’s had an opportunity in several debates to talk about his position on abortion –
BENNETT: What is the answer to that question?
BRAZILE: Bill, look –
BENNETT: What is the answer?!
BRAZILE: You want to have a conversation about narrow issues –
BENNETT: That is not: that is fundamental!
BRAZILE: It is a fundamental issue, but the American people want to talk about gas prices …
More accurately, the American people are concerned with gas prices; it is Democrats who want to talk about it, because Obama and his Democrats have no actual plan for energy, but do feel they can score cheap points off the issue, as well as keep people off the subject of Obama’s manifest incapacity to be President of the United States. That aside, this also shows the very smallness of modern Democrats. Leave foreign affairs to the UN; use the military as a social services agency and please lets talk about gas prices as if the price of a gallon of gas is the largest issue in the whole, wide world. Truth is, it only modestly annoys me once per week when I fill up the tank - but even then I can pat myself on the back for not purchasing an SUV, as so many liberals do (one of the larger problems I noted in getting around Santa Monica, CA is the massive number of SUVs clogging the roads in that oh, so liberal city). Most of the time, the price of gas doesn’t come up - what with worries over the old man’s health, the purchase of a new dog and, you know, that life thingy that we’re supposed to be doing instead of worrying about gas prices.
Meanwhile, a very large number of my fellow human beings will be murdered this year, mostly because some people have been suckered into thinking that its no big deal to kill the unborn. Somehow, the death of a human being looms a little larger in the grand scheme of things than the difference between $3.25 and $4.25 a gallon…
Tags: abortion, energy policy, libderal lies, oil price
June 27th, 2008
For energy independence, as noted by Jonathan Adler at NRO:
Speaking Monday at Fresno State University in California, Sen. John McCain put forward what may be the most promising and important energy-policy proposal of the campaign: a $300 million prize for the development of advanced battery technology. “In the quest for alternatives to oil, our government has thrown around enough money subsidizing special interests and excusing failure,” he noted. Yet rather than have Washington pick winners and losers from within the energy industry, McCain suggested that the government should reward innovation and actual achievement. “From now on, we will encourage heroic efforts in engineering, and we will reward the greatest success.”
As outlined by McCain, the prize would be paid the first innovator to develop a battery technology that “leapfrogs” existing electric car and plug-in hybrid technology, in terms of size, capacity, power, and cost. The aim is a battery technology that capable of powering motor vehicles at 30 percent of current costs. This would be a significant technical breakthrough, greatly enhancing the ability of battery-powered vehicles to compete in the marketplace.
Government-sponsored prizes for innovation are based upon the same principle as the patent system: Encourage innovation by rewarding inventors and entrepreneurs with the promise of super-competitive returns. A patent provides such a reward by giving the innovator a temporary monopoly for his invention. A prize goes one step further by placing a bounty on a particular type of innovation, increasing incentives for potential investors.
$300 million is a good deal of money, and I wish now that I’d bothered to study engineering and that sort of stuff like my Dad wanted me to (well, he never said, study engineering, but I got the distinct impression that the man who worked on the space program and the Stealth fighter wanted very much for one of his children to follow in his footsteps). Be that as it may, it is a great incentive and rather than having some bureaucrat - under pressure from whomever donated the most - select which research programs to subsidize, just throw the prize out there and left people self-select themselves for the effort, and the reward (’cause it wouldn’t just be that $300 million - there would also be the patent rights, and the bonanza of cash for that). This is the sort of real change McCain offers as opposed to Obama’s false change, which is really just warmed-over Carterism.
Now, any techno-geeks out there in the audience have any ideas on how to leapfrog to this new technology?
Tags: energy policy, John McCain, oil price
June 25th, 2008
Really does take a lot of guts to demand the closure of a loophole your party created and kept open, but Obama is proving himself up to the task of Democratic mendacity:
With the cost of gas a top issue in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama on Sunday will announce a plan to crack down on oil speculation by tightening regulations on energy traders.
The announcement is further evidence that an Obama administration would take an activist, populist approach to regulating business.
Obama wants to close a loophole in federal law that exempts some energy traders from regulations that govern other exchange-traded commodities. Democrats call this “the Enron loophole” because it benefited the Houston energy-speculation firm that collapsed in an accounting scandal.
In response, John McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said: “The truth is Barack Obama is following John McCain’s lead to close a Wall Street loophole that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. John McCain has supported bipartisan efforts to close this loophole and will work to address abuses in oil speculation.
“Barack Obama has voted the party line for Democrats who claim the loophole is fixed. The fact that Barack Obama is attacking John McCain, despite McCain’s leadership on the issue, shows that Barack Obama is driven by the partisan attacks that Americans are tired of.”
Rather typical of the liberals - enact a “solution” which actually becomes the problem, pretend to be shocked by the results, blame Republicans for it and then present another “solution” to the problem, which merely starts the whole process over again.
While there is grounds for reformed regulatory oversight of the commodities market the plain fact of the matter is that oil will remain high - no matter what regulations we enact - as long as people are willing to pay a high price for it. Speculators have done a lot to drive up the price, but so has increased demand outside the United States - the solution, however, to high energy prices is not to seek a Evil Enemy to blame (which is the basic plan of Obama and his Democrats), but to find cheap energy to replace the expensive energy. In this area, McCain simply blows Obama’s class warfare, socialist nonsense right out of the water.
McCain proposes increased production of American oil; increased development of nuclear power; increased use of clean coal technology…Obama proposes a Carteresque “windfall profits tax” (as if oil companies should be punished because other people are willing to pay a high price for their product…perhaps we should do a “windfall profits tax” on whomever makes the next hot Christmas toy on the same theory - if people want it a lot and are willing to pay a premium for it, then you’ve done something wrong), increased regulation and proposes nothing which will actually add to America’s non-oil energy supplies.
We’ve got a choice in November - between the hidebound, liberal practices of the 60’s and 70’s, or the forward looking policies set afoot since Reagan became President in 1981. For all Obama’s talk of change, he’s really all about implementing the policies McGovern advocated 36 years ago. Past vs future at stake - and Obama is stuck in the liberal economic dark ages, as if he’s learnt nothing at all.
Tags: Barack Obama, energy policy, John McCain, oil price
June 22nd, 2008
I, along with Gary Gross, Ed Morrisey, Noel Sheppard, and other bloggers. were asked to participate in a conference call (broadcast live on the Ed Morrisey Show) with U.S. Republican Representatives Michele Bachmann, Dr. Phil Gingry, Tom Price, Eric Cantor, Marsha Blackburn, and Adam Putnam.
Unlike the democrat majority, who are uttering the unbelievable Sierra Club meme that “We can’t drill our way into energy independence,” the Republican contingent in the U.S. House has a comprehensive plan that is designed to drill and otherwise make our way back into $2.00 per gallon gas.
According to our Republican representatives, we have the ability to extract 1.3 trillion barrels of oil from shale reserves; not to mention the millions of barrels of oil that we can extract from ANWR and the Continental Shelf.
They responded to criticisms leveled from the democrat side that if Nancy Pelosi was to bring a bill by July 4th, it still wouldn’t be a fix , since it would take ten years to retrieve the supply.
But they explained there is a significant upward pressure in the prices due to the current market and conditions, with the knowledge that the U.S. won’t pursue its own supplies. An opening of those resources will send a signal that we are going to join oil producing nations, and will send a message to speculators that will result in an immediate decrease on the upward pressure on prices.
(As an aside, by using that same logic, we would have today been enjoying the fruits of ANWR oil, had Bill Clinton not vetoed that legislation back in the mid 1990s.)
We’ve got the technology and the ability to explore in the deep waters off the coast and to do it in an environmentally safe way.
When the point was brought out to the Representatives of the fact that the majority party in congress is beholden to the interests of the extreme environmental lobby, they were nontheless optimistic that the democrats would eventually see the light and serve their larger constituencies.
Gary Gross has more on the call here.
During the conference call, the contingent of U.S. Representatives stated that they were honored to be communicating their policy to bloggers, and stated that bloggers were a driving force in the energy conversation; and that emails and letters come to their office from constituents who had read about the issues on blogs. Michele Bachmann stated that she is grateful to the blogosphere for the continual end-around that they perform around the agenda media in getting the facts out. Congressman Bachmann stated that she hoped to have similar events slated in the near future.
Truth be told, the democrats and the extreme environmentalist lobby are the only things standing in the way of our ability to move past economic stagflation and on toward the promise of true prosperity. The current condition of our economy and our current energy woes are inextricably linked, and blame for our sorry state of affairs can be placed directly at their feet.
We are in the midst of an increasing clamor in our nation over the undue pain caused by high fuel prices, and the extreme environmental lobby and their willing democrat (and RINO) accomplices will need to answer to an increasingly frustrated constituency; either now, or at the ballot box in November.
Tags: Congress, energy policy, Environmentalism
June 19th, 2008
Excellent:
It takes a very short leap in logic to wonder why we produce less and less crude oil, while we use more and more of it, or why politicians talk so much about promoting alternative energy sources, but often do so little to promote these alternatives. A reasonable observer, presented only with these numbers of consumption and production, might draw the conclusion that America has accepted this fate because we have no choice in the matter, or because we have no resources of our own. But just the opposite is true: We do have resources, and we do have a choice.
In oil, gas, and coal deposits, we have enormous energy reserves of our own. And we are gaining the means to use these resources in cleaner, more responsible ways. As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston. Yet for reasons that become less convincing with every rise in the price of foreign oil, the federal government discourages offshore production.
At the very least, one might assume, America had surely been building new refineries to achieve a more efficient delivery of gasoline to market, and thereby to lower the prices paid by the American people — especially in the summer season. But the policymakers in Washington haven’t got around to that, either. There’s so much regulation of the industry that the last American refinery was built when Jerry Ford was president.
As for nuclear energy — a proven energy source that requires zero emissions — we haven’t built a new reactor in 31 years. In Europe and elsewhere, they have been expanding their use of nuclear energy. But we’ve waited so long that we’ve lost our domestic capability to even build these power plants. Nuclear power is among the surest ways to gain a clean, abundant, and stable energy supply, as other nations understand. One nation today has plans to build almost 50 new reactors by 2020. Another country plans to build 26 major nuclear stations. A third nation plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet one quarter of all the electricity needs of its people — a population of more than a billion people. Those three countries are China, Russia, and India. And if they have the vision to set and carry out great goals in energy policy, then why don’t we?
So, taking stock of our energy situation, it is time we draw a few sensible conclusions of our own. In their sum effect on the American economy, the policies of our government could hardly have left us more dependent had they been designed to do precisely that.
There is plenty of blame to go around here - GOPers and Democrats have been remiss in their responsibilities to the nation as a whole as it relates to energy policy. Again and again President Bush proposed various measures we could have been taking over the past 7 years to reduce our dependency on oil and cut our oil imports, but no action has been taken - not under the GOP Congress, not under the Democratic Congress. That $50 you just shovelled into your gas tank is the result of decade after decade of doing nothing - or, worse, actually working against energy independence by over-concern about overblown environmentalist fearmongers and/or the worst sort of “nimbyism” which makes out that everyone wants energy, but no one wants it produced within a country mile of themselves.
It is time for a change - a real change; not more of the same from Obama and not pie-in-the-sky hopes for the future…we have oil, gas, coal and nuclear power sources, and we should be working out ways to maximize domestic energy production, while the high technology change over to new sources of energy is placed on the back burner until we get our energy house in order. McCain proposes to hit the problem head on and deal with it in a realistic manner - in spite of his bows to the global warming zealots, it is clear that he’s not going to allow environmentalist whackos to set energy policy. Clean, yes; but not so clean that nothing gets done. Human activity will always produce waste, and things like this are always a series of trade-offs with no perfect solution possible. Absent a few billion of us dying, we’re just going to have to work with things as they are, not as we might wish them to be.
Tags: energy policy, John McCain, oil price
June 19th, 2008
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