Congress Vacations With High Gas Prices & Work Undone

Today in Washington D. C. - June 30, 2008 carries a special headline: "Congress Vacations With High Gas Prices & Work Undone." Congress is not in session today beginning its Independence Day Recess (July 1st-July 10th) a little early on Friday. They will say they are holding a pro-forma session which means someone graveled into session a do nothing session while the rest traveled home.

ABC News summed up Americans’ understandable frustration with the lack of any movement on energy and gas prices from Capitol Hill:

With Americans still reeling from this week's report that gas may cost $7 a gallon in a few years and with millions either losing their homes to foreclosure or unable to sell their homes, people are looking looking for help. Well, don't expect quick action here. Congress has gone on holiday and told the nation, "See you after July 4th." Nobody here but tourists, who can't understand why Congress would leave with so much undone. . . . "What I find most puzzling about this time now is that there is no nervousness on the part of Democrats as an election approaches that Americans are going to hold them accountable for fiddling while the housing crisis continues to burn," said Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Left uncompleted before the July 4th recess were the compromise FISA bill (H.R. 6304) and the housing bill (House messages to accompany H.R. 3221). Delaying tactics by Democrats opposed to the immunity provisions in the bill forced Sen. Reid to put off FISA votes until the week the Senate returns. The housing bill was also held over as Democrats continued to deny Republicans the opportunity to offer amendments. Democrat leadership continue to ignore rising gas prices while Republicans have offered solutions.

Democrats mention that they will be focusing on other legislation, must be using mental telepathy since they are absent from Congress, to focus on other legislation over the break but in reality they will be complaining about Republicans blocking their Democrat energy measure which really amount to more taxation, more regulation, and more litigation and will do nothing to lower gas prices or increase energy production.

While Republicans are pushing commonsense measures to produce more American energy and more American jobs, Democrats continue their blind opposition to drilling for more oil. They’re clearly on the wrong side of the issue. Even the widely-acknowledged liberal editorial page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune encouraged drilling on the outer continental shelf last week.

Democrats protest that oil and gas companies already have leases they’re not using all of, but The Wall Street Journal explains why this assertion is misleading: “To deflect the GOP effort to relax the offshore-drilling ban – and thus boost supply while demand will remain strong – Democrats also say that most of the current leases are ‘nonproducing.’ The idea comes from a ‘special report’ prepared by the Democratic staff of the House Resources Committee, chaired by [Rep. Nick] Rahall. . . . [T]hese whiz kids assume that every acre of every lease holds the same amount of oil and gas. Yet the existence of a lease does not guarantee that the geology holds recoverable resources.”

Some Americans aren’t waiting for Democrats in Congress to get a clue. The AP reports that oil from the Bakken Formation in western North Dakota is making millionaires out of some people in that corner of the state. The AP points out that “the U.S. Geological Survey calls [the Bakken Formation] the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.” Perhaps North Dakota’s Democrat senators, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, will consider supporting more oil drilling when they see what is happening in their home state.

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