Republicans Kill Bill to Lower Gas Prices

Okay, that’s a little spun for a headline here, but right now, it sure feels right.

You see, Republicans in the Senate blocked further consideration of a bill that would have allowed the Justice Department to pursue OPEC members for price fixing, from the Post:

The bill also would have instructed the Justice Department to pursue members of OPEC for alleged price fixing and required oil traders to put up more cash on futures exchanges to address speculation, which many observers believe is contributing to the unprecedented run-up in world crude oil prices.

The bill did a few other things as well, like taxing oil company windfall profits as well, but the goal here is that they want to drill. Yep, the Republicans in the Senate, with their heads up their asses, continue to deny global warming and their idea on global warming is to drive more, burn more and drill more. Again, from the post:

They said the nation could combat high fuel prices more effectively by increasing domestic oil supplies by permitting new exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in waters on the Outer Continental Shelf. Most congressional Democrats oppose drilling in those areas.

But for once, I have to agree with Kay Bailey Hutchison on this one:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) added: "Anyone in America who is filling their gas tank must think that Congress is fiddling while Rome burns. The idea that we would bring up a bill that is called an energy plan, that has no energy production in it, is ludicrous."

Of course, her stand would make more sense if she also supported tax breaks for renewable energy, ah but there’s no need for that sort of thing. Of course, I think that Sherrod Brown hit the nail on the head in this Politico piece by way of CBS News (BTW, Politico, do you also note all the conservative Senators? I’m guessing, you don’t…good thing that Sherrod doesn’t mind being labeled).

Brown, a liberal freshman senator whose home state of Ohio has been particularly hard hit by manufacturing job loss, seemed almost apologetic for voting against the bill. He called global warming "the moral question of our time" and said he supported a cap and trade system. But Brown said he feared that the cap and trade system as written would allow the United States to "export emissions" rather than reducing them because foreign countries without tough pollution standards would take the U.S. jobs eliminated under a cap and trade mandate.

Gee, that’s what Brazil, Poland, China and Mexico have been doing for years. Wait, I wonder what the oil executives view all of this is? The NYTimes posted a little ditty on their testimony before Congress and I had to chuckle as the same White Men’s chorus has been sung out loudly by Republicans in Congress lead by the solos of Mitch McConnell:

The executives politely but just as firmly insisted that Congress should focus its efforts on allowing more drilling and exploration for domestic oil — in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore in the Atlantic and Pacific, and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. They insisted that they were investing heavily in search of new oil supplies.

And they strongly warned against other measures: any new tax on profits would put American companies at a disadvantage and only further decrease oil supply; a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax would increase demand and only raise prices more; lawsuits against foreign nations would do nothing to lower prices.

I was really worried that the CEO’s that make more than I can even think of could actually sit before Congress and tell them and the world that lower profits is bad for the world because it means more money paid by the little guy. I’d probably buy this argument if one of them even knew what it meant to be a little guy.

On the issue of Fuel costs, Food Costs and drilling in ANWR, Republicans are dead wrong. Their half assed backwards and wrong. But what’s worse is that any of us in this country could even have illusions that anything is going to bring down the price of oil. Oil isn’t the future, it’s the past and we need to invest in renewable sources for energy. If we don’t, there will not be roads to repair, crops to harvest or houses to heat. Life as we’ve known it over the past 100 years is over and we need to find the next great thing, we need to find our next “oil” to meet our energy needs.

Oil is finite and until we all realize this, we’re all screwed. I suppose that's what Oil Executives love, screwing consumers. And it Oil Execs love it, you know thier lap dogs, Congressional Republicans, can't wait to help them do it.