Aug 02 2008
The Day The Democrats Lost Their Hold On Congress?
Yesterday there was a spectacle on Capitol Hill that was just stunning. It was as if Nancy Pelosi wanted to underscore her disastrous run as head of the Democrat House. While the nation is reeling under $4 a gallon gas as massive reserves go untapped here in the US, Pelosi fell victim to her socialistic views and literally shut down the House and ran off to CA for a month long vacation, unable to be bothered with either the plight of Americans struggling to pay for the gas they need or the messiness of open debate:
At the stroke of 5:00 on Friday afternoon, House Republicans ended their half-day protest on the darkened chamber floor with a round of “God Bless America.â€
That capped a wild day in the chamber, where Republicans, aides and tourists broke all manner of House protocols to protest the Democrats’ decision to leave Washington for the five-week August recess without voting on a measure to open new land to domestic oil and gas exploration.
Congressional fat cats are on their 5 week vacation while the rest of us need to work more to do the things we need to get done.  This is likely the day America decided to fire the Democrats this fall. There is no excuse for The People’s House to turn its back on the needs of We The People.  My bet is the polls start turning quite dramatically after this farce.  And the GOP would be smart to bring this up every single day in August.
Just think of the ad campaign that said each day “Day 1 (N) of the Congressional vacation and you are still paying $4 a gallon while they play in the summer sun, is this leadership? Vote GOP in November”. Nothing fancy, just the facts.
OK it hurts to put $4 a gallon of gas in the car and how about airplane tickets, and groceries, and unemployment numbers going up, and our auto industry going broke and on and on. There is almost nothing that oil or its derivatives are not evolved in. Maybe drilling is not THE answer but to think we can do with out it is plain stupid.
There shouldn’t have been anything much to talk about. Of course you need more drilling (in the least damaging places) until alternative energy sources take over.
Incidentally, it looks like the mortage problems will get worse because Australia’s biggest bank has just made allowances for losing a billion $AU in the US ‘Triple-A’ mortgage market which was 90% of what they had in it!
I grew up in Oklahoma. The oil industry was our bread and butter. We not only need the oil, we need the jobs that domestic energy production can bring.
What else is new? The dims motto is cut and run. Cut and run in Viet Nam. Cut and run in Iraq. Cut and run on drilling. Cut and run on anything that slows their progress to socialism. All those plus blame the republicans for everything. Next it will be cut and run on Afghanistan.
It is amusing that the only candidate the dims could come up with for president is only a former Chicago community organizer with one year in the senate. I say one year because he has been campaigning for two years and was not available to vote. or if he was there he voted present. Also a guy who doesn’t know what committees he is on. Why should he? He didn’t attend any of the meetings and has no memories of them. The idea that he is a viable candidate is ridiculous. Just a cocky guy full of himself.
I was disappointed when the revolt was over.
I wish and hope that the Republicans will be back next Monday to continue the revolt.
Mark Tapscott said that Nancy and the Republicans made mistakes. Nancy in getting those Republicans evicted and the Republicans quitting too soon.
I agree that the GOP should continue to mention this every single day.
I wonder if McCain could use this revolt for his next ad…
Looks like many democrats are flocking away from the Democratic party in droves and the percentage of the Democrats voting for McCain hasn’t changed or went up? 30 percent.
I wonder how many people will show up at the Denver football stadium for Obama’s speech…
IF any Congressman…do I have to say Congressperson?… reads this. Stay there! Keep the house in “Where are the Dems on Energy session for as long as it takes.
Just POUND them on their vacation… Get the RNC to run a few ads. Maaany blogs will get on the bandwagon. Great Move. Do not flinch. Semper Fi
Pres. Bush. Get some guts. Advertise this on national TV and embarrass the C**P out of the Dems.
A man to the moon energy drive! The Boone Pickens plan, Oil everywhere, shale, nuc, wind, sun…. and yes, even inflate your tires to the proper pressure.
IF you flinch and go home yourselves, shame shame on you.
lurker:
I am not sure what good it would have done to stay indefinitely. The point was to make Pelosi come back and call for a vote. If she refuses to do that {and she probably would at this point} and shuts them down then sooner or later they have to leave.
It would make more sense to keep doing things like this consistently and often to make their feelings known. I am glad they did what they did, I am not going to criticize them.
It is pathetic that Congress takes a month+ long summer recess every year, but it is hardly unique to Democrats. Every single Congress in the modern era, including the GOP Congress 2002-2006, has done it.
As for sticking around to address the $4 gas, you’re kidding yourself if you think Congress can pass something that will give Americans immediate and sustainable relief. Read the governments own report on off-shore drilling – there will be no oil from it until 2018 and the peak flow won’t occur until 2030 if we started today. At its peak flow, it will only provide 1% of today’s domestic comsumption – hardly a significant effect. There is no magical solution. Gas prices will be relatively high for a while, get used to it.
Here people… this is an Industry news report about the time it will take Shell, who began drilling a new development in the GUlf in 2007 to start extracting oil and going into production.
Just so you know how much bullshit people like conman are telling you.
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11 Oct 2007
Shell announced that drilling began on the Perdido Regional Development spar in Alaminos Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico.
To prepare for the project, Noble Clyde Boudreaux recently underwent renovations to allow the ultra-deepwater rig to withstand hurricane forces equivalent to Katrina. With two derricks, the rig will also be able to operate twice as quickly as single-derrick rigs.
With the capacity to house 200 people, the Clyde Boudreaux is slated to stay at Perdido until 2010. Plans for the semisub are to drill a 20-well batch set.
Shell will finish drilling the wells, complete the project and start production by the turn of the decade.
Set to serve as the world’s deepest spar production facility, the Perdido will be moored in approximately 8,000 feet of water. Additionally, the direct vertical access spar’s production capacity is set to top out at 130,000 boe/d.
The Perdido spar is already scheduled to develop three fields: the Great White, Silvertip and Tobago. Shell serves as the operator with 35% interest, while Chevron and BP are co-owners with 37.5% and 27.5%, respectively.
Vince, you’re right, conguy never knows what he’s talking about. In fact, if he says it, you can consider it to be BS.
And that oil development Shell is talking about is very deep drilling and is producing withing 3 years. Most of the Shelf drilling and other US drilling is NOT deep drilling and goes much quicker.
Once some platforms are set up in the Gulf, it can drill and put a well into production in weeks, not years.
all this 2018 talk is just the leftys trying to justify their lies.
Two little questions:
1) The oil companies already own 68 million acres of federal lands (on and off-shore territory) on which they are not drilling. Why should we give them more areas on which to not drill?
2) Not a single economist in the entire country would go on the record and state that off-shore drilling would do a single thing to effect gas prices in the next 10 years. If people who cover this for a living aren’t willing to say it, why are all of you suddenly qualified to know what it will do? Can you give one piece of proof that off-shore drilling will affect anything in 5 or 10 years?
I pondered actually doing some work to refute breschau.. but really … isn’t it clear to all.. he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about
I am so sick of “debating” things based on the Left’s moronic talking points.
It’s like an unrelenting stream of stupidity and mental retardation.
conman wrote:
“There is no magical solution. Gas prices will be relatively high for a while, get used to it.”
.
For what it’s worth, you really start to feel it once it gets to about US7 a gallon – which is where it’s at in Australia now. In our case it doesn’t cost anywhere near that much to produce, but our government somehow makes it cost more so that we will be working be”in parity” with the rest of the world (or something like that).
$US7/gallon? Ouch. I knew Europe had been about that high (or higher) for a while, but I didn’t know Australia was already there, too.
And I’d go one step farther than conman: gas prices aren’t going to be this high”for a while” – this is the new base price. It’s only going to go up from here. Just one of the many reasons I started telecommuting from home full-time a couple years ago.
Vince & Redteam,
I presummed it was common knowledge about the production timing of the off-shore drilling. I guess I’ll start providing references for all of my statements to avoid the hassle of always having to respond to your rants by pointing out the obvious.
Here is what the 2007 Annual Report of the Energy Information Administration, the official annual report of the Bush US Department of Energy that is relied on by the US government, says about the timing of production from those off-shore areas we are currently debating (Outer Continental Shelf (“OCS”) area) as to whether or not to allow drilling:
“The projections in the OCS access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017.”
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo07/issues.html
It is under the section entitled “Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf” – here http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/otheranalysis/ongr.html. The 2007 report projects 2017 if we were starting the process then. Now that it is 2008, production would not start before 2018. I checked the 2008 report and it does not provide any different or updated information on this issue – this is the latest US government projection.
Get it? That is what the US Department of Energy, led by your hero Bush himself, is projecting. Sorry, but it is common knowledge for anyone who actually takes the time to understand the “facts” about the off-shore drilling debate. I can’t wait to hear your explanation as to why the Bush administration is so wrong about the projections. Hey, maybe the standard attack the source as a bleeding-heart liberal MSM report by an overly zealous environmentalist. Or maybe you will link to some nutcase conservative blog, as if he/she is more credible than the official Bush Department of Energy. Too funny!
There is another common knowledge item that you appear to be confused about as well. The Gulf of Mexico project is only going to take 3 years to start producing because they are starting drilling now! The off-shore areas we are talking about are not that far along in the process and would require in the following order: (1) federal and state legislation removing the ban on drilling; (2) lease negotitations between the oil companies, federal and state governments – the 2007 EIA projects completed by 2012; (3) permit approvals for each individual off-shore project, an extensive and long environmental review process at both federal and state level; (4) exploration for specific drilling areas; (5) construction of the drilling rigs – AND THEN YOU BEGIN DRILLING. Hello – common knowledge!
Do you get it now? I get so frustrated with this drivel. I completely respect conservatives who believe/argue legitimate issues based on the actual facts, such as the argument that we have to start increasing production now in order to plan for future demand when domestic oil supply is projected to be even worse (the 2007 EIA addresses this point as well), even if I disagree and think we should focus more on decreasing demand and alternative energy sources. That is a credible argument that cannot be simply dismissed by liberals. What I loath is people who refuse to even look into the basic facts around the policy issue to have an actual debate and deny facts they haven’t even tried to understand. If you stopped getting your news solely from conservative GOP ra-ra blogs you might actually learn something useful.
conman: save your breath. I wouldn’t give anything you say the time of day.
Vince,
Yeah, I understand. Why would you take 2 minutes to read the links I provided to verify that it is the US Department of Energy’s projection and the projection concludes that we will see no production from off-shore drilling until 2018? You may actually learns something about the issues you are attemtping to debate. If you took another 2 minutes you could google it and verify that this production timeline is well documented. But why do that – it would only interfere with your ability to ignore reality and the facts when they don’t fit conveniently into your ideological belief system.
By the way, when the only thing you can say in response to opposing views that actually cite facts and provide links to references to support those facts is – “your a moron, I don’t believe anything you say” – save your breath. First of all, we know you think everyone that doesn’t agree with your idelological beliefs is a moron and untrust-worthy. No need to keep making that point. Secondly, responding to substantive arguments with the ole “your an idiot” line only makes it patently obvious that you cannot respond in kind.