Political CoverUps

House fails to move gas pump price gouging bill

By Andrew Peterson
For CoverUps.com

H. Josef Hebert has written an interesting article about the latest chapter in the disgusting spectacle now playing out in Washington D.C. The subject of course is oil.

While the Republican minority does everything it can to get an up-or-down vote on ending the oil drilling ban, the Democrat majority frantically tries to change the subject, introducing one bill after another that ignore the heart of the problem. Meanwhile American motorists (who are also voters) keep getting hit at the pump.

"Somebody's afraid that we'll send a message" and lift the drilling ban, Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations panel, said Tuesday as the panel focused on other legislation.

That includes people like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel. As expected, Emanual tries to shift the blame for high oil prices away from himself and his Democrat colleagues and onto "Big Oil".

"One way you deal with this problem of supply ... is to force oil companies and gas companies that own permits to drill them," said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a senior member of the Democratic leadership.

To accuse the oil companies of not wanting to drill is dishonest and stupid. Before they drill on their leases, the oil companies have to explore the at great expense to see if there's any oil there. Often there isn't. If the oil companies aren't drilling on a leased property, chances are it's because they've explored it and found nothing.

And here's another House Democrat offering up another lame excuse not to drill, as quoted in Hebert's article:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said that legislation to lift the ban has significant support and might pass the House, but he told reporters, "If we allow drilling everywhere tomorrow, there would be no additional supply available."

That's not a reason not to drill for oil. That's a reason to get busy drilling for oil right now.

Alas, the Democrat party are more interested in making excuses than in offending the Environmental lobby than in facing the problem and cutting American drivers a much-needed (and much-deserved) break:

Other Democratic proposals range from giving the federal government new tools to curtail speculation in oil trading markets by imposing new requirements on the amount of collateral traders must have in oil purchases and requiring a reduction in mass transit fares.

Our Take

The Democrat party is addicted to the money it gets from the Environmental Lobby. That's part of what's going on here. Another part is nothing more than brutal political calculation by the Democrats. They think that the voting public, wild with pain and rage from high gas prices, will blame Republicans and the oil companies for this problem.

Read the original article.