The minute it was announced that a delegation of House Republicans were going on a fact-finding mission, I anticipated that the Agenda Media would go into full spin cycle mode. Now that’s happened. Check out the spin in this Strib article. Here’s the part I’m most dubious about:

The Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) holds too little oil to reduce gas prices more than a few cents per gallon, and new sources of oil could take decades to develop, according to government analysts.

Oil shale in Western states might be significant enough to one day exceed imports from Saudi Arabia, but it faces tough technological hurdles to become reality.

“It [oil shale] is sort of meaningless in the sense that it’s such a large resource base and we’re so far from producing it,” said Philip Budzik, an oil and gas analyst at the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “It’s not going to be tomorrow, and it’s not going to be in 10 years.”

Our old friends from the EIA are back peddling their BS again. What they lack in predictive skills, they make up in inaccurate redundancy. Perhaps Mr. Budzik could explain why gas prices wouldn’t drop from an actual increase in oil production in light of the 42 cent a gallon drop St. Cloudites experienced this week following President Bush’s lifting of the executive ban on drilling on the OCS.

Better yet, perhaps he can explain why we should even start drilling new wells if it’s only going to drop gas prices “a few cents per gallon.” If that’s true, then Mr. Budzik’s telling us that we’ll simply have to put up with high gas prices for the next decade. In fact, if what he’s aying is true, $4.00/gallon gasoline will look reasonable in a few years.

If Mr. Budzik is right, the ramifications on our economy will be staggering. Not only will our gas, groceries and utilities be more expensive, high gas prices will put many OTR truckers out of business. Tourism will be crippled. Airlines would be in desperate straits.

Fortunately, Mr. Budzik isn’t right. Increasing the cushion between demands and supplies will have a significant effect on gas prices. I don’t know whether it’ll drop prices into the $2.00/gallon range but I’d be surprised if it didn’t drop prices significantly. If we increased drilling in the areas that are curretly offlimits, I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw gas at $2.75/gallon or even less. It’s already dropped almost .50 in a week.

Before anyone says that President Bush’s pushing drilling on the OCS isn’t what caused that drop, that it’s just about supply fluctuations, I’ll simply ask when the last time was that they saw gas prices drop .40+ in a week. They can’t point to it because it hasn’t happened other than following a catastrophe. Katrina comes to mind.

One last thing: Government analysts say that “new sources of oil could take decades to develop.” Why should we trust bureaucrats instead of industry experts? During the last House blogger conference call, we were told that it would “take months” to see production if they fitted oil rigs off California’s coast with new technology. That’s months, not decades.

Another thing that we were told was that it won’t take that long to get production going on rigs near existing infrastructure.

That’s before considering the fact that oil is sold on futures contracts. While it might take 3-5 years to get things running full steam, the signal that increasing production would have a near instantaneous impact on prices.

This opinion isn’t worth much either:

“The low-hanging fruit is not energy production, it’s conservation,” said Robin West, an energy consultant who ran the U.S. offshore drilling program while assistant secretary of the Interior under President Ronald Reagan. “The simplest way…is enforce the speed limit…and then drop it.”

West also favors government action to require greater fuel efficiency than a 35 miles-per-gallon target recently approved by Congress, and more spending on mass transit.

That sounds like a page out of Jimmy Carter’s or Richard Nixon’s rationing pages. Forgive me if I ignore West’s suggestions. The sound like pages out of the children’s book “The little engine that couldn’t.”

This section is buried near the bottom of the article’s second page but it’s worth reading:

Scores of U.S. House members are backing bills calling for developing ANWR and restricted areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and Western oil shale. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., has joined Bachmann in supporting six measures, two of which also include provisions to expand oil refineries and nuclear, wind and clean-coal technologies.

“We ought to be doing more to develop American energy,” Kline said, adding that technological advances have greatly reduced environmental hazards offshore and in Alaska.

Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., joined Kline and Bachmann in supporting a measure allowing drilling in ANWR on condition that some of the revenue from the new oil leases be invested in alternative energy.

Frankly, i wouldn’t have a problem with some of the government’s revenue from leases being invested in alternative research. I’d be opposed, though, to using lease revenues to subsidize alternatives like we did with ethanol. I’d prefer the marketplace, not the government, determining who prospers.

Peterson’s signing onto such legislation won’t help, though, because Speaker Pelosi stated that she won’t give such legislation a vote. That’s why Thursday’s DRILL Act vote was under a closed rule. Ms. Pelosi couldn’t give Republicans the opening to offer an amendment to open leasing for the OCS. If DRILL were open for amendments, there’s no doubt but that enough Democrats would side with Republicans to pass such an amendment.

Here’s what Minority Leader John Boehner said about that:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said Congress is ready to lift the ban on offshore drilling but is being blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

“Nancy Pelosi and the liberals here in the Congress, they worship at the altar radical environmentalism. The last thing that that group wants is more drilling,” said Boehner in an interview with Bloomberg TV Saturday.

The Ohio Republican argued that lawmakers are ready to sign off on lifting the ban in order to increase fuel supplies to lower record high gas prices.

“There’s a majority of the House and Senate who are for more drilling. We have to produce more supply if we’re going to bring down the price,” Boehner said.

If Ms. Pelosi prevents voting on drilling on the OCS, she could see a significant reduction in her majority. I’ll guarantee the fact that the NRCC highlighting the fact that Democrats didn’t challenge Ms. Pelosi when their constituents needed them fighting for their prosperity, not party discipline.

Expect more spin pieces in the days ahead, especially the closer the election becomes. Just remember that spin can’t beat facts in a crisis.

Technorati Tags: ANWR, John Boehner, John Kline, Michele Bachmann, Collin Peterson, Oil Production, Nancy Pelosi, Obstructionist, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog