Here are some of the highlights of a blogger conference call on energy policy:

House GOP Policy Chief Rep.Thad McCotter:

GOP POSITION: American production, common sense conservation & free market innovation. Democrat position: litigation, conservation.

John Shimkus: “This energy package doesn’t produce an ounce of new energy in any of the 3 bills.” Rep. Shimkus said that Democrats twic shut down committee hearings rather than voting on opening up the OCS. (editor’s thought: Is this how to make America independent of foreign oil?)

Here are three quotes from John Peterson that caught my attention:

“There is no environmental danger in offshore drilling.” Rep. Peterson
cited the fact that there was “no damage offshore from Katrina & Rita.”

Finally, there was this eyepopper:

“California could have production “within months” with modifications to offshore
rigs.

John Peterson: “When we open up production, we get rid of the speculators.”

Rep.Thad McCotter: “These are regulation bills, not production bills.” (House was scheduled to vote on 4 bills today, none of which would’ve added a bit of energy.)

Minority Whip Roy Blunt: “Congress can decide that our natural resources are an asset.” (ed. note: Rep. Blunt then said that Pelosi’s bunch had decided not to make them part of the solution. )

“Peterson is a real leader on offshore.”

Newsbusters’ Noel Sheppard:

Shouldn’t we also be talking about inflation caused by high gas prices?

Michele:

“Democrats are getting exactly what they want.” “Obama was clear that energy
prices aren’t too high. The price just went up too fast.”

What’s astonishing to me is how utterly opposed Democrats are to increasing oil and natural gas production. It’s pretty pathetic that they shut down a pair of committee hearings rather than vote on amendments that would’ve opened up oil production on the OCS. Rest assured that they didn’t adjourn the meetings because they knew they had the votes. It was done because they knew that those amendments would pass.

The House GOP Caucus is pushing this issue hard. We’ve had our reservations about them in the past but they’re doing the right thing. It’s time we rewarded them by contributing to the NRCC. Every contribution will go a long ways in defeating Democrats. Follow this link to contribute. Let’s make Speaker Pelosi a quaint piece of history.

Technorati Tags: Roy Blunt, Thad McCotter, John Peterson, John Shimkus, Michele Bachmann, Oil Exploration, OCS, Inflation, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. Peterson. That’s my Congressman. Too bad he’s stepping down.

   Comment by rightwingprof — June 27, 2008 @ 2:23 pm

2. Democtrats dont care what the price of gas is, they have no intention of drilling, lessening our dependence on foriegn oil, or doing anything to lower the price even if it were possible.

   Remember that Al Gore said once that government should work to artificially raise the price of gas to $5/gallon in norder to either force us to either use public transport of buy dinky little deathtraps to drive around. Well, they’ve almost reached their goal.

   Comment by T.A Gray — June 29, 2008 @ 5:57 pm

3. Democrats dont care what the price of gas is, they have no intention of drilling, lessening our dependence on foriegn oil, or doing anything to lower the price even if it were possible.

   Remember that Al Gore said once that government should work to artificially raise the price of gas to $5/gallon in order to either force us to use public transport or buy dinky little deathtraps to drive around. Well, they’ve almost reached their goal.

   Comment by T.A Gray — June 29, 2008 @ 5:58 pm