Congressman George Radanovich California�s 19th Congressional District

An Open Letter to Speaker Pelosi

On Friday August 1, 2008, at 11:23 a.m., your Democrat majority in the House of Representatives adjourned the House for five full weeks.

House Republicans believe that Congress should not go on vacation until we take action to lower gas and energy prices for struggling American families.

For the last two months we and our House Republican colleagues have used every tool at our disposal to try and get you and your Democrat majority to vote on legislation to lower gas and energy prices by expanding environmentally sound domestic production of oil and natural gas, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging the development of alternative energy technologies.

Many of the proposals we have asked you and your Democrat majority to allow us to vote on are bipartisan proposals that we believe would enjoy the support of a majority of the Members of the Congress. Yet because you and your Democrat Leadership personally oppose these proposals, you are not allowing them to come up for a vote.  This past Sunday, you even told George Stephanopoulos that you will never allow this vote to occur (see transcript on the reverse).

In protest of you and your Democrat majority not allowing an up or down vote on producing more American energy, we and our House Republican colleagues were prepared to take to the floor on Friday, August 1, 2008, and speak to the nation. Rather than allowing that to happen you and your Democrat majority adjourned the House, turned off the television cameras, shut off the microphones and turned out the lights. Nearly 50 House Republicans remained on the floor of the House in defiance speaking to those citizens gathered in the galleries and to the media.

Today we have again returned to the Capitol to continue speaking to the thousands of Americans from all across our country who are visiting the Capitol. We would have preferred if instead we were joined by our colleagues to have a true debate on this issue that ended in an up or down vote.

We think it is unconscionable that Congress has gone on vacation before we have addressed the high gas prices that are crippling our economy and hurting millions of families.  We are asking that you reconvene the House from your five-week vacation and schedule a vote on legislation to increase American energy production. Let us be clear, we are not asking for a guaranteed outcome, just the chance to vote.

Signed by: John Boehner, Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, Republican Whip; Adam Putnam, Republican Conference Chairman; Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Whip; and Members of the House Republican Conference

STEPHANOPOULOS: … You’ve been getting a lot of heat on — for not allowing a vote, a straight up-or-down vote on expanding drilling off the coasts of the United States. Why won’t you permit a straight up- or-down vote?

PELOSI: … What these — what our colleagues are talking about is something that won’t have an effect for 10 years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something as part of an energy package, we’re talking about something. But to single shoot on something that won’t work and mislead the American people as to thinking it’s going to reduce the price at the pump, I’m just not going to be a party of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except that it’s not just Republicans calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, is saying there’s going to be a vote. Here he says exactly, there’s going to be a vote. September 30th will not come and go without a vote on opening the outer continental shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can’t be ignored any longer. He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He’s talked to the leadership, and a vote must happen.

PELOSI: Well, maybe it will, as it’s part of a larger energy package.

…

Instead we’re saying, free the oil. Use it, don’t lose it. There’s 68 million acres in lower 48 and 10 or 20 million more acres in Alaska, where they’re permitted, where they could drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from a failed energy policy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you feel you have the better arguments, why not give a straight up-or-down vote for drilling?

PELOSI: Because the misrepresentation has been made that this is going to reduce the price at the pump. This is, again, a decoy, it’s not a solution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, if you’re right, why not let it be debated out and have the vote?

PELOSI: We have a debate every single day on this subject. What you saw in the Congress this week was the war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies. That’s what you saw on the Republican side of the aisle.

Democrats and Republicans are not right down party lines on this issue. There are regional concerns, as well as some people concerned about what this means back home for them.

But we have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow. And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices. …

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as speaker, you promised in your commitment book, A New Direction for America, let me show our viewers, you said that bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives.

If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can’t they have a vote?

PELOSI: They’ll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote, and they may get a vote. But I have tried, you know, we have serious policy issues in our country. The president of the United States has presented this but for this, our economy would be booming. But for this, gas would be cheaper at the pump.

It’s simply not true. And even the president himself in his statement yesterday and before then has said there is no quick fix for this by drilling.

…

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you will not permit a vote. You may get beat, but you’re not going to permit a vote on your own?

PELOSI: Well, again, we take this one step at a time. But why we’re spending all this time on a parliamentary tactic when nothing less is at stake than the planet, the air we breathe, our children breathe? We have…

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House Republicans have transformed their “all-of-the-above” energy strategy into a single piece of legislation: the American Energy Act.  The bill – a product made possible by energy policies proposed by Members throughout the House Republican Conference – will increase the supply of American-made energy, improve conservation and efficiency, and promote new and expanding energy technologies to help lower the price at the pump and reduce America’s increasingly costly and dangerous dependence on foreign sources of energy. 

Bipartisan passage of the American Energy Act would demonstrate to the world that America will no longer keep its rich energy resources under lock-and-key.  Not only will it help bring down the price of gasoline now, but it will make needed investments in the alternative fuels that will power our lives and our economy in the future.  Following is a brief summary of the American Energy Act:

To increase the supply American-made energy in environmentally sound ways, the legislation will:

• Open our deep water ocean resources, which will provide an additional three million barrels of oil per day, as well as 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, as proposed in H.R. 6108 by Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC). Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) has also worked tirelessly on this issue.
• Open the Arctic coastal plain, which will provide an additional one million barrels of oil per day, as proposed in H.R. 6107 by Rep. Don Young (R-AK);
• Allow development of our nation’s shale oil resources, which could provide an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, as proposed in H.R. 6138 by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI); and
• Increase the supply of gas at the pump by cutting bureaucratic red tape that essentially blocks construction of new refineries, as proposed in H.R. 6139 by Reps. Heather Wilson (R-NM) and Joe Pitts (R-PA).

To improve energy conservation and efficiency, the legislation will:

• Provide tax incentives for businesses and families that purchase more fuel efficient vehicles, as proposed in H.R. 1618 and H.R. 765 by Reps. Dave Camp (R-MI) and Jerry Weller (R-IL);
• Provide a monetary prize for developing the first economically feasible, super-fuel-efficient vehicle reaching 100 miles-per-gallon, as proposed in H.R. 6384 by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT); and
• Provide tax incentives for businesses and homeowners who improve their energy efficiency, as proposed in H.R. 5984 by Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Phil English (R-PA), and Zach Wamp (R-TN), and in H.R. 778 by Rep. Jerry Weller (R-IL).

To promote renewable and alternative energy technologies, the legislation will:

• Spur the development of alternative fuels through government contracting by repealing the “Section 526” prohibition on government purchasing of alternative energy and promoting coal-to-liquids technology, as proposed in H.R. 5656 by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), in H.R. 6384 by Rob Bishop (R-UT), and in H.R. 2208 by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL);
• Establish a renewable energy trust fund using revenues generated by exploration in the deep ocean and on the Arctic coastal plain, as proposed by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA);
• Permanently extend the tax credit for alternative energy production, including wind, solar and hydrogen, as proposed in H.R. 2652 by Rep. Phil English (R-PA) and in H.R. 5984 by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD); and
• Eliminate barriers to the expansion of emission-free nuclear power production, as proposed in H.R. 6384 by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT).

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