A certain segment of our society loves pointing to polls suggesting that is the express wish of the American people for the Iraq war to end, and stomp their feet like spoiled children when their candidates teeter even slightly... especially when men who know what they are talking about (such as Gen. Petraeus) give that candidate information they find politically offensive. So much for "fact finding." I just have one simple question. Why is Speaker Pelosi ignoring the will of the American people on one issue while simultaneously trumpeting the will of the American people to justify her stance on another issue?
You see, Speaker Pelosi is playing a dangerous game on an issue she is dead wrong about. Forget this non-sense about opening the strategic oil reserve - it is a fallacious argument because these liberal politicians argue themselves that drilling won't affect price. Putting 90 billion barrels of oil on the market, they argue, will not affect price accordingly but putting 70 million barrels on the market is somehow a better solution in their eyes. Not only is this argument insulting to the intelligence of the American middle class who are being hurt incredibly by gas prices, but it defies even the most basic tenets of supply and demand. Even the length of time it would take to put the oil on the market has been incredibly overblown. Details aside, this is what the American people clearly want and if she doesn't allow the vote backlash against Democrats will be enormous, albeit unfairly for certain Democrats who, unlike Speaker Pelosi, respects the will of the American people.
Speaker Pelosi is willing to watch Rome burn to make a point and to stay true to the environmentalists she is beholden to. Even papers such as the Washington Post are now standing with mouth agape at Nancy Pelosi. She and she alone is to blame for preventing a vote, which she can do by decree as Speaker, which is a vote that would likely pass. What Americans want only matters to her when Americans agree with her. If she continues she will not be Speaker in another year and will be forced to walk the plank for potentially endangering the majority they currently enjoy.
Trent Lott lost his position for much, much less. If defying the will of the American people based on ideology is treasonous in the context of George W. Bush (sound familiar?), then in this context it is equally applicable as well. People should not be surprised to see that Congress is less popular than President Bush, and under the current leadership it is truly miraculous that in two years Democrats have proven that their leadership is even more haphazard than when Republicans ran things. It has only been two years! When Americans watch and listen to the leaders of Congress, can it be possible that by removing the incompetent Republicans that things have actually gotten worse? Watch and listen to Speaker Pelosi and judge for yourself.
We're paying the price for our own inaction over the past 30 years. We could have raised CAFE standards for cars and trucks and stayed ahead of the rest of the world, whose cars we're shipping overseas and buying in America now. We could have stopped subsidizing oil companies and instead funded R&D of renewable technologies, which are suddenly popular, and should be making huge profits for forward thinking American companies. But we didn't do any of that.
Don't blame the tree-huggers... Seems like the environmentalists succeeded in getting support for preserving open spaces in America, it became a popular idea to protect parts of America from pollution, and save them for future generations. But environmentalists did not succeed in convincing the people or the government to take the next logical step, to start creating alternatives and more efficient machines for us to use. Environmentalists have been talking about conservation, pushing solar, wind, raising the CAFE standards... they've been working on it for years, you can blame them for failing to convince the people and the government, or you can blame the politicians and the people for not getting it sooner.
But the real problem is that there is a finite supply of fossil fuels, and if America makes the advances quicker than the rest of the world, we will reap the benefits of a better balance of trade, more wild places for us to enjoy, and more money in our pockets to spend.
People are getting squeezed now because we waited for the market to tell us what to do, instead of acting on the obvious. The government's job is to anticipate changes and make sure the country is prepared to adjust and hopefully be able to take advantage of those changes, they failed. Now the market is squeezing us by the balls, and we're like "but we can't change that fast" and the market is like "what the hell have you been doing for the past 5 years? you knew this was going to happen." and we're like "Rush Limbaugh told us it would all be fine!?" /comedy
I do believe that competition is the engine of innovation, but I also see that an unregulated market usually leads to monopoly, not competition. The idea that the market should be the only government we need is the biggest pipe dream of them all. /tangent
I know working class people are paying the price for all these high prices, my family is a case in point. and something needs to be done, because they don't deserve this crap. But we should put drilling as the last priority, not the first, because even though we won't see that oil for about 5 years, drilling is still a short term solution. I'll blame the government for inaction, not the environmentalists who have been demanding change for all these years. I remember hearing that if the environmentalists get their way the economy would be in the toilet, well the economy is in the toilet, even without those 'green' bogymen.
i say high gas prices are fine. I think we don't need falsely low gas prices, it is only gonna come bakc and slap us in the face eventually. WE might as well start dealing with it now and start looking for alternatives and lower the amount of driving. I don't think we need to have cheap gas, people oculd rearrange their life and tyr to live on less gas. Granted i live at home and work a block away but i just tink it miht be good if there are other ways to deal with high prices instead of pumping out more oil
I am not saying that high prices are good. But high prices are leading to conservation, and that is good.
Prices, so long as they are set by an open market, are neither good nor bad. They are natural. (On the openness of the oil market, I am not smart enough to speak--but it doesn't seem very open to me)
As for congress standing up to the executive branch, they have rolled over on war funding, on the wiretapping of American citizens, and on obstruction of justice. I believe the last two are impeachable offenses, but the congress, after raising a bit of a stink, stops fighting and even goes along with these misdeeds.
Oh - after all that - it is worth mentioning that the complaints concerning the government purchasing oil were heard. In 2006 the government announced that it was going to stop purchasing crude, and in May of this year stated that by July all increases in the reserve would be halted. By the way, reserve capacity is also affected by refinery capacity, but it also appears that we are reaching full capacity for the reserve anyway, so I suppose it is only logical that this slowdown would occur.
(e:ajay) - what she is doing isn't funny - the middle class and the poor definitely aren't laughing at what she's doing. The lady is an embarrassment nationally and deserves every bit of criticism she is getting. The opinion polls aren't flattering... even Dick Cheney is trumping Congress at the moment.
(e:drew) - I support a multi-pronged approach, including drilling as much as possible while simultaneously pursuing alternative technologies in an aggressive manner. Some aspects of our energy infrastructure could be easily replaced with power supplied by renewable resources, but with other aspects switching to different sources is a pipe dream. We aren't snapping our fingers and replacing a hundred million cars, thousands of aircraft, etc. to hydrogen or biofuel. It just isn't going to happen - like it or not we still need oil for the foreseeable future, but in my opinion I don't see why (save this for posterity) Al Gore's goal of having all renewable electricity within 10 years should be ignored.
Taking oil from the reserve is a political blunder and nothing more. Even if they released the entire reserve the amount of oil would last 33 days - we are talking about a tenth of that amount. This is akin to pissing on a house fire and blatantly ignores the will of the people.
I have to admit - when people suggest that high prices is a good thing, it drives me bat shit crazy. Tell that to the working poor and to the elderly, the latter of which represented a quarter of all bankruptcies last year. Punishing the most vulnerable in our society because of an ideological slant is unconscionable, even immoral in my view. Arguing that the ends justify the means, which is exactly what this is, is specious. In my opinion anyway, this is just as regressive an idea as cigarette taxes.
Again, why is the will of the American people important when the topic of Iraq comes up, but is utterly irrelevant when drilling comes up? No critics of drilling are able to answer this question so far. Americans are getting upset, particularly when they discover that between ANWR, the continental shelf and the shale oil in the Rockies we have three times (!) more reserves than the Saudis, not to mention vast reserves of natural gas. The environmentalists' concerns are becoming less relevant in the minds of the American people - that much is absolutely crystal clear. The environmentalists have been good at intimidating the politicians but they will not intimidate the vast bulk of Americans (three-quarters of all Americans, based on the most recent Zogby poll) who are not concerned about the plight of the caribou and support expansion of domestic drilling.
I don't think subsidizing oil companies on anything will be happening anytime soon, particularly when just this week the big oil companies are going to release news of record profits. What are they doing with their profits? Buying back stock. People are watching them carefully and are wondering why more money was spent buying back stock than attempting to find more supply and development of alternative energy combined.
It is incredibly easy to beat up on the energy companies though. Did you know that we haven't built a new refinery in America in over 30 years because groups like the Sierra Club actively intimidated your politicians into rejecting the idea? In the State of California, just as an example, the citizens are proud and puff their chests because they prevented the construction of new nuclear plants in their state. Now 25% of the power provided to California is imported from nuclear plants in neighboring states. It is the height of hypocrisy, but also sheds some light on how special interests have bought off our government to see things their way, to the utter detriment of the country.
Point on conservation - that is a valid point, and I think it is true that conservation has lead in part to decreased prices. I'm not about to make a logical leap and inflate the importance of conservation on prices, but I think in the long run we are going to conserve more and more. I also think any drop in the amount of crude that we use will be more than offset by demand in India and China in the long run. That is part of the problem. In any case though, Americans have instituted their own de-facto conservation policy which has been interesting to watch. The one thing we cannot do is tell people how to use their energy and how to live. Believe me, if it were a sin to be wasteful with energy Al Gore would have a special place in Hell.
One of the most interesting aspects of the low Congressional approval ratings is the variety of reasons why people are not happy. As far as 'standing up to the executive branch' is concerned, what exactly do you mean? I would love to see a qualification of that statement. They are co-equal branches and do not oversee or regulate each other, nor does one branch set an agenda for the other. I can't think of one instance where the Democratic Congress acquiesced since they took over.
"Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D), . . . is actively fighting against the wishes of the American people"
LOL.
(deep breath)
LOL.
(deep breath)
LOL.
(deep breath)
You have a great sense of humor, (e:Joshua). Say, could you remind your "Decider" about the wishes of the American people too, sometime? Thanks!
Of course she doesn't want a vote. She's afraid the people on her side will do the predictable thing and vote based on what will get them elected.
She has been a catastrophe. The 2006 election gave the Dems a chance to claim a mandate for action and she has been pissing it away. This latest pile of nonsense does make you wonder about who she actually is working for. Being scared to get vetoed shouldn't keep you from at least trying.
There is a lot of rhetoric on both sides of this issue.
Meanwhile, prices are heading back down. Why? Because people are driving less.
Meanwhile, conservatives are starting to convince me that more drilling MAY be a good thing, if it is done responsively (and isn't subsidized at all.)
In the short run, actions with the strategic reserve WOULD have a much greater effect, because they would be immediate and two-fold. Not only would we be releasing oil to the market, but we likely would stop filling the reserve as well. Right now, the federal government is driving UP the cost of oil by buying for the reserve.
You know what else uses a lot of oil? War. Those Humvees ain't hybrids.
For the record, I think we should be cautious with drilling, and neither fill nor empty the reserve. We should end the occupation because it is the will of the Iraqi people and smart, and if it reduces gas prices, that's nice bonus (I believe it will).
Prices will remain high for a while which should serve as an economic incentive for other technologies. Additional incentives, when done cautiously and intelligently, might help (note: not the way we are doing ethanol--that is just pork for farm states).
As for your opinion on Pelosi, I agree that she has been disappointing, but for different reasons. She has done little to stand up to the executive branch as it has abused the constitution. Forgive me for sounding like Ron Paul, but she has failed to uphold her oath of office nearly as much as Bush/Cheney have.