Congress says don’t drill, sue
Posted by Richard on May 22, 2008
Just a week ago (for the umpteenth time in the last 25 years), Democrats thwarted efforts to increase domestic oil and gas production by blocking access to vast supplies in ANWR and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. We can't "drill our way to lower prices," Sen. Durbin said.
This week, Democrats passed (with the support of countless craven Republicans) an alternative solution cleverly entitled the "Gas Price Relief for Consumers Act." It says that instead of producing more oil, we should just sue OPEC and force them to produce more for us. (Robert Bryce suggested we also sue the Dutch to make them produce more Heineken.)
And today (also for the umpteenth time), Democrats are lambasting oil company executives. Besides the usual demagoguery against "obscene" profits, senators criticized the oil firms for not investing enough in exploration and refineries.
But wait! I thought burning more oil was evil — that we had to give up our "addiction to oil" in order to save the polar bears and prevent the seas from boiling. I thought we all had to accept the fact that, as Sen. Obama chided us, "[w]e can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times …"
So why do our brilliant Congressional leaders want to force the OPEC countries and oil companies to produce more oil?
Maybe it's so that they and their Hollywood friends can continue to jet off to "save the planet" events around the globe in their private Gulfstreams. (And then condemn wealth and profits, of course.)
Or maybe it's all just posturing and pandering and jockeying for more power.
Leave a Comment