"An all-of-the-above energy plan"

The editorial below from our 5th District Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, appeared in the July 17 edition of the Seattle Times.

Rep. McMorris Rodgers, the Ranking Republican on the House Water and Power Subcommittee, co-sponsored the Americans for Energy Act and was the first signer of the Declaration of American Energy Independence.

We are lucky to have Cathy representing us. She is fighting for lower gas prices along with the other House Republicans on Capitol Hill who have refused to go home until the Democrats vote on offshore oil drilling.

If you're like many people, the high price at the pump is keeping you close to home this summer. And even if you can afford to fill up, the high price of fuel means you're paying more for groceries and other goods. The high energy prices are affecting everyone. It is the No. 1 issue I hear about from you — and I understand your frustrations.

Since the January 2007 beginning of the 110th Congress, the president has signed 244 bills into law. Guess how many of those were naming post offices and public buildings? Nearly 40 percent. Twenty of them resulted in a nearly $340 billion tax increase on the American public!

With gas much more than $4 a gallon, you'd think Congress would put everything else on the back burner and focus on what's really important to the American people: the high cost of energy. It's simple. We need to lower the cost of gas. It's critical to our economy and it's critical to our national security.

Since coming to Congress, I've had the opportunity to vote for American energy 24 times. I am pleased to tell you, every time I voted yes.

I am also one of the original sponsors of the Americans for American Energy Act. The act is a comprehensive energy proposal aimed at reducing energy costs through increased energy production, conservation and innovation.

We need to move away from foreign oil and produce more of our energy here at home — including expanding the role of our hydroelectric dams. We also need to look for ways to conserve the energy we waste every day. It's time we start meeting America's energy needs with American resources, and this plan does that.

It's clear we need an all-of-the-above approach, like the Americans for American Energy Act, to meet our nation's current and future energy needs. On electricity production alone, just to keep up with new demand, by 2030 we'd have to build 747 new coal plants, or 52 new nuclear power plants, or 2,000 new hydroelectric generators.

The need to increase domestic oil and gas production is no different. In the 1950s, America was one of the leading exporters of oil. Today, we import nearly two-thirds of it because we've put our own resources off-limits. It's off-limits to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or off the coasts of Florida or California. We have the largest supply of coal in the world, but it's Germany that is planning to build 27 coal-fired electrical plants by 2020.

Today, environmental regulation and process hinders most domestic energy production. One example, the National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA, started as a single-paragraph statute in 1969 — essentially one paragraph on one page and was turned into 25 pages of regulations and has resulted in more than 1,500 court cases.

When I chaired the task force to update and reform NEPA, I learned that the average time frame for obtaining a permit to produce natural gas has tripled. I learned the NEPA process has caused some producers to wait more than 10 years for approval to market clean natural gas. This fall, I look forward to introducing NEPA-reform legislation to improve the process and recognize we can move forward in an environmentally friendly way.

In Congress, I am working to offer real solutions, such as encouraging more investment in innovative energy technologies, supporting clean and safe access to petroleum resources off our nation's shores and on public lands, and promoting investment in renewable sources of energy. We must unleash American ingenuity.

Whether it is oil sands, wind, the development of clean liquid fuels from coal, biodiesel, hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear power or solar energy, all of these sources of energy decrease our dependency on foreign oil. They also create new markets, stimulate the work force and help contribute to American energy.

But none of it will happen overnight. It is time we start taking action to meet our growing energy needs with American energy — and "no" is not an answer.

Democrats Energy Policy: Blame Straw Men

If the United States Senate’s dimmest bulb really wanted to stick it to oil speculators, she would side with President George Bush and back oil exploration along the nation’s continental shelf, among other places. Instead, she has chosen to attack a straw man with a bill that will probably pass, but will do absolutely nothing about energy prices because it does nothing to increase supply.

Patty Murray recently barnacled herself to whining airline executives who claim to have discovered proof that speculators were to blame for rising oil prices: “Twenty years ago, 21 percent of oil contracts were purchased by speculators who trade oil on paper with no intention of ever taking delivery. Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab.”

Imagine that – people buying and selling a commodity for profit? That bears an unsavory similarity to capitalism and something must be done about it! And Patty Murray intends to do just that with her foolish “Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008.”

I have two pieces of information that might help enlighten Ms. Murray, although I doubt that enlightenment is what she seeks. First of all, people who actually know what they’re talking about (they’re called “economists”) insist that evil speculators actually smooth out markets and dampen wild price oscillations. If airline presidents were smarter, they would purchase aviation fuel on the futures markets so that they would know in advance what their fuel costs would be and plan accordingly. And the reason that oil contracts trade so much more often than they once did is an effect rather than a cause. Futures contracts for any commodity that is exhibiting rapid price fluctuations will be traded frequently. And finally, any legislation passed by the Congress that would limit oil speculation only has force within the United States. Oil speculators abroad will simply ply their trade elsewhere.

But of course, this means nothing to Patty Murray, because reducing oil prices and punishing speculators is not her real intention. If she wanted to do something about either she would join with Republicans as they seek to increase supply. Since President Bush rescinded an executive order banning oil exploration along United States coastlines, crude oil prices have fallen by more than $20 per barrel. That means that every speculator who bet on oil prices continuing to rise has lost his shirt or perhaps his hajib.

What Patty Murray and her homey, Washington’s junior U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, are seeking is not consumer relief, but showboating. They wish to create the illusion of “doing something,” knowing full well that they are doing nothing and have no intention of accomplishing anything. Maria Cantwell let that cat out of the bag last week. When asked point blank if she would support efforts to provide Americans with relief by increasing supply she adhered tightly to the Nancy Pelosi/Harry Reid party line: “Oh, we definitely want to move beyond petroleum. And so there will be a supply side offered by the Democrats and it will include everything from battery technology to making sure that we have good home domestic supply, and looking, as I said about moving faster on those kind of things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of natural gas.”

Translation: She’s only interested in economically unviable and technologically infeasible goofball programs that are nowhere near bearing fruit and likely never will. Gasoline prices are not going down. In fact, unless something substantive is done, in a few years we’ll be recalling the $4.00 per gallon summer of 2008 as the good old days.

In the meantime, Americans will have to settle once again for promises from Democrats that they will get even with “the man.” Propping up cardboard cutouts of enemies and knocking them down is a party tradition. It’s the foundation of the tax code, a fact that Barack He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Middle-Named Obama let slip during a debate. Getting even has become the last vestige of the civil rights movement, and that’s been enough to keep 90% of the Democrats’ most loyal demographic in line. Will that getting even with cartoonish enemies be enough to seduce the rest of us?

No Oil, No Drilling, No Debate

Republicans should take notice of what scares Nancy Pelosi.

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There's a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing it in the House of Representatives -- certainly, you won't find lawmakers voting on it -- anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? "What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy," she said yesterday when asked that very question. "What we're saying is, 'Exhaust other remedies, Mr. President.' . . . It is the economic life of America's families, and to suggest that drilling offshore is going to make a difference to them paycheck to paycheck now is a frivolous contention. The president has even admitted that. So what we're saying is, 'What can we do that is constructive?' "