The Latham Report: House Leadership Passes Partisan Energy Bill, Plays Games with America's Future
Washington,
Sep 18, 2008 -
On April 24th, 2006, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly said that she had “a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices…” She said that almost two and a half years ago when prices were about a dollar a gallon less than they are today.
Gasoline, diesel, propane, heating oil and natural gas prices are at levels never seen before in our history. The response to this crisis by Congress and Speaker Pelosi has been an abundance of partisan bickering and finger pointing with no movement towards a solution.
As this crisis continues to grow it creates an additional financial hardship and burden on family incomes, increases operating costs for Iowa small businesses and farms, and risks services offered by local governments.
Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has yet to deliver on her two and a half year old promise to the American people. And worse, this week she and her leadership team in Congress pulled an election year public relations stunt falsely advertised as an energy bill.
The 300-page hastily written measure was introduced less than twenty hours before the full membership of the U.S. House of Representatives was asked to vote on it. No committee hearings, no amendments, and quick consideration on a bill written in the backrooms of the Capitol that most members hadn’t even had a chance to read prior to voting on it.
The bill, while it had good some ideas on renewable energy initiatives and assistance for low-income Americans, blocked our country’s independence from foreign oil by permanently locking away 88 percent of the best American-controlled oil resources on the Outer Continental Shelf and blocks energy production on Alaska’s wilderness areas where an abundant supply of relatively quickly accessible oil has been pooled. And, when a majority of Americans understand that a truly comprehensive, all-of-the-above, approach is the only way to address this crisis, the Speaker's bill also blocks efforts to produce more and cheaper energy through emissions-free nuclear and coal-to-liquids technologies. Instead Speaker Pelosi opted to bring down the price of gasoline for Iowa families by including unrelated provisions in her bill that provide federal taxpayer funded subsidies for bicyclists, a giant earmarked tax credit for New York City, and a new consumer awareness program to make sure people know when gas prices are high… (pause) I’m sure most Iowans will probably know when gas prices are high.
The bill did pass… but thankfully it is going nowhere fast.
A senior Democrat Senator said this week that Speaker Pelosi’s energy bill was “dead on arrival” when it reaches the Senate. And, one group that many of us respect as an important voice for American small business is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Here is what they said about Speaker Pelosi’s bill in a letter they sent urging me to vote against the bill: “Judged in total, this legislation represents a small step forward and several giant steps backwards for domestic energy production. The Chamber believes Congress should work in a bipartisan manner to approve legislation to expand domestic energy production before the end of this Congress.”
The Chamber is right!
Each day in this nation 86% of our nation’s energy comes from fossil fuels – and that needs to change. And, 94% of global oil resources are directly or indirectly controlled by foreign governments. We are, now more than ever, seeing the vulnerability our nation faces because of our heavy reliance on some of the least stable, undemocratic countries in the world – that also needs to change.
This energy crisis is an American challenge and one that will require American solutions in order to achieve a balanced, common sense approach to achieving American self-sufficiency and energy independence. To accomplish this, Congress must drop the political games and sham bills and begin to work together to find real, bi-partisan, comprehensive, and a long-term solution to the energy crisis.
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