Hoodwinked again

Our Democrat-controlled House of Representatives (HA! Representing WHO?) returned from its five-week vacation and, with energy and gas prices suddenly at the forefront of political debate, plowed an energy bill through passage early Tuesday.

It was another Lib Special: Introduced in the dead of night between Monday and Tuesday. No committee saw the 294-page document, no Republican House member saw it. No debate was allowed with the exception of a one-minute time limit for one opposing voice before it went to a vote.

Here's how it was described in the mainstream media: "Comprehensive" and "landmark" and "legislation that will increase domestic drilling."

And here's how to describe what the media is telling us: "Distortion" and "misleading" and "blatant lies."

Better yet, here's part of what Roy Blount (R-Mo.) said in his one minute. You certainly won't hear this in the media, either:

"Republicans have worked for years in this House to send good legislation to the Senate, joined by Democrats who agree with us on this issue. We worked all of August to call attention to the fact that we weren't dealing with the number-one problem facing the American people and now we have a bill that will not produce any more energy and we know will increase energy prices. The renewable portfolio standards that raise everybody's electricity bill are unreasonable.

"But that doesn't matter because nobody expects this bill to become law. The drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf can't really occur. But maybe that doesn't matter either, because this bill is not about doing something that could become law.

"I'm offended. Members of the House are offended and we should be by this process. And the American people should be offended that we're not doing the job for them that really matters. I yield back."

You all know my feelings well enough about this subject, so I'll spare the commentary. But here's what the bill actually will do:

--Currently, drilling is banned on 85 percent of U.S. coastal waters within 50 miles of land. Reserves in these areas are in excess of 18 billion barrels of oil, and that's just what the Interior Department's Mineral Management Service knows about. Another example: 95 percent of known reserves off California's coast are within 50 miles of land.

If this bill becomes law, drilling will be banned on 97 percent of this area. Permanently. Also off-limits permanently: ANWR and most of Alaska's other richest reserves.

--The bill ignores the tens of billions of barrels located off the Arctic coastal plain ... an area where several countries, including Russia, are competing with us for rights. It also ignores several trillion barrels of oil shale reserves across the western frontier.

--The "increase" in drilling that Libs and their PR secretaries in the media are touting is in the 50-to-100 mile range of U.S. coastlines. While these areas, with far fewer known reserves, will be opened to drilling by the bill, it also gives the ability for each coastal state to opt for or against drilling off its shores. And the best part? The Libs also removed all royalty payments from oil extraction to those states.

That's a $2.6 trillion pie, folks. And no state is going to say, "Oh yes, by all means drill off our shores!" when all that money now will go to Washington instead.

In essence, House Libs like Nancy Pelosi can now placate the unknowing, uncaring voting public by saying they passed an energy bill that will increase the potential for drilling while knowing it will never happen.

But that's not all, folks. The bill also:

--Eliminates $18 billion in tax breaks to the Big Five oil companies and imposes additional royalty payments in the tens of billions of dollars from those companies to the federal government (NOT states!).

Want to guess who will bear the brunt of that financial hit? If you said the consumer, you get a cookie!

--Does not allow for development of nuclear or clean-coal technology.

--Further, it imposes mandatory use of renewable energy on electric companies, no matter their cost, which is a slam-dunk guarantee of further escalation of our electricity rates.

The bill also contained the usual amount of pork. Among those I could find just tonight: $1.2 billion to extend New York City's subways; approximately $6 billion in low-income housing subsidies (can you say Tony Rezko and Barack Obama?).

But my favorite: A program (for which I couldn't find a pricetag) that potentially would buy every American commuter a bicycle.

I swear I am not making that up.

Actually, if this bill ever becomes law, quite a few of us will eventaully need bikes. Fortunately, it doesn't stand a chance in the Senate ... several Senate Democrats already have deemed it "dead on arrival." And even if it did, President Bush already said he'd veto it.

So when it's all said and done, we won't get a much-needed energy bill out of this Congress. Democrats facing re-election, though, now can go back to their head-in-the-sand voters claiming they passed energy legislation.

Even if it is nothing but a hoax.

(Imported from Sept. 17, 2008)