The Conservative Revolution

The Republicans in the House of Representatives have been giving speeches on energy prices in a mostly empty room while the Democrats are on vacation. I have been out of the country and haven’t been following this story until now, but my colleague Nan Swift has been.

The revolt on the House floor will continue until the Republicans can bring the Democrats back from their August vacation to vote on increasing the domestic supply of energy to bring oil and gas prices down. I’m told that some of the speeches have been quite good, and that the R’s might have finally gotten their groove back. Let’s hope so.

I will be on the House floor tomorrow to see with my own eyes what is going on. No cameras are allowed, so I will just have to write updates on this blog when I get back to the office. Will the Democrats continue to ignore real solutions to high energy prices this summer? Time will tell. But it’s good to see the House Republicans finally show some bold leadership, even though the mainstream media is ignoring their speeches.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is leading the charge to lift the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling. As David Freddoso of National Review Online notes,

“On September 30 — two months from today — the ban on fossil-fuel drilling off America’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and in the oil-shale fields of the West will expire. Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, must pass an appropriations bill extending the bans.”

This means that the moratorium can only continue this year if the Democrats decide to add it to appropriations legislation.

This is not something that the American people are going to support this year, given the rising costs of fuel. President Bush has said some positive things about increasing our domestic exploration, and has lifted the presidential moratorium against offshore drilling. Hopefully congressional Republicans have the fortitude to take this issue to the American people.

Liberals in Congress want to continue to block attempts to increase our domestic supply of oil and gas, while conservatives want to begin the process of lowering prices. In the words of Dick Armey, it is time to DRILL DRILL DRILL.

This video is one of the most viewed on YouTube right now. It’s a clip of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) saying that oil and coal are “making us sick.”

I guess this means that we shouldn’t expect any pro-energy exploration bills out of this Congress anytime soon.

My FreedomWorks colleague Peter Suderman just put this great new video together on gas prices. For more info, please visit GasPriceProtest.com

Columnist George Will has a good piece in the Washington Post about high gas prices and the current lack of domestic energy supply. He writes,

“One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Bill Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there. One million barrels produce 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Seventy-two of today’s senators — including Schumer, of course, and 38 other Democrats, including Barack Obama, and 33 Republicans, including John McCain — have voted to keep ANWR’s estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil off the market.”

Will goes on to point out who is drilling for resources off our coasts.

Drilling is underway 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are.

People can continue to complain about high gas prices, but they should realize that environmentalists and the loony left has been blocking efforts to explore for oil and gas in Alaska and off our coasts. Part of our current supply problem is due to the fact that for decades the left has refused to allow us to expand American energy supplies. Instead, they’ve forced us to get much of our energy from foreign sources. It’s time the American people sent a message to Congress that we should begin to drill now, so that we can produce more domestic energy in the future.

Today FreedomWorks is launching a new petition site called GasPriceProtest. With gas prices rising faster every day, we are trying to call attention to sensible energy policies that would increase domestic supplies and allow more refineries to be built. Our goal is to steer Congress toward the right direction, and away from the loony environmentalist position of restricting exploration and new refineries.

Please do your part to promote sensible energy policy. Visit GasPriceProtest.com now!

There is much anger and frustration about gas prices these days as the national average climbs toward $4 per gallon. While there is much hand-wringing about the sharp increase in prices, there is also a lot of finger pointing. Unfortunately for the left, it deserves much of the blame.

For the last few decades environmentalists have blocked efforts to increase the supply of domestic oil and gas. They have protested, lobbied and demanded that Congress not build new oil refineries. They have successfully prevented us from opening up Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf to exploration. They have done this while at the same time decrying “price gouging” and “greed” by the oil and gas companies.

Some folks need a basic lesson of economics in supply and demand. Price is the data point that tells us where supply meets demand. Since oil is a global commodity, there is a global supply and a global demand. India and China are growing economically at rapid rates, which is a good thing. But, this is causing a much higher demand for oil and is thereby putting pressure on world oil markets. China in particular is cutting deals with oppressive regimes to access their natural resources. The U.S. has a similar relationship with Saudi Arabia. But instead of suing OPEC or demanding that the Saudis produce more oil, Congress should encourage domestic exploration to increase the supply of oil available on the market. Unfortunately, the left still opposes common sense measures like this in the name of protecting Mother Earth. But exploration is much cleaner and safer than it was in the past. We can explore and be good stewards of the environment.

FreedomWorks is launching a new petition site next week called Gas Price Protest in order to build a consensus for increasing the supply of available oil and gas. With your help we can put pressure on Congress to do something that will actually make an impact on future gas prices. The left has blocked our attempts for years, but perhaps now there is enough frustration and anger to apply the political pressure necessary to enact a common sense energy policy in this country.