The GOP Is Going To Continue Their House Protest Over Energy Vote

The protest that the House GOP started friday is going to continue monday as they push for an up or down vote on The American Energy Act, a comprehensive plan to reduce the cost of energy. It is a do it all approach and not just about lifting the bans on drilling for oil off the coasts and in the interior. Michelle Malkin wrote just this morning that the GOP in order to make this a historic event needed to continue this through the recess and let the American people know who really is to blame for the high price of energy, Democrats kowtowing to the environmentalist lobby.
Democrat Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on with George Stephanopoulos this morning and he pressed her on why she would not allow a vote and all she could do was spin and obfuscate, the video is here and Newsbusters has a transcript. She tells so many lies in her attempt to dodge the issue it is beyond parody, she lies about the amount of time it would take and the impact future supplies will have on the price today, here is a brief sample.

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

NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: What we have presented are options that will really make a difference at the pump. Free our oil, Mr. President. We're sitting on 700 million barrels of oil. That would have an immediate effect in ten days. What our colleagues are talking about is something that won't have an effect for ten years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something that's 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 part of it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except it’s not just Republicans that are calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, says, “There is going to be a vote. September 30 will not come and go without a vote on the 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: Maybe it will, as part of a larger energy package. Let's step back, call a halt and put this in perspective. What we have now is a failed energy policy by the Bush/Cheney, two oilmen in the White House. $4 a gallon gasoline at the pump. And what they're saying is let's have more of the same. Let's have more of big oil making, record profits, historic profits. You see the quarterly reports that just came out, who want to be subsidized who don't really want to compete. Let them use the subsidies to drill oil in protected areas. Instead we're saying, free the oil. Use it, don't lose it. There's 68 million acres in lower 48 and 20 million more acres in Alaska where they're permitted where they could drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from failed energy policies.

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 is being 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 there on 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.

While she may be in sync with her constituents in the Socialist Republic of San Fransisco she is grossly out of step with the vast majority of voters that understand supply and demand and don't blame the oil companies or President Bush for the high prices. If she is so busy wanting to save the planet then why is she jetting back and forth around the country over the recess to promote her stupid little book burning tons of fuel and spewing tons of carbon into the air. She is just another do as I say not as I do blowhard hypocrite like Al Gore. George did a good job of pushing her here and is correct that if she is so sure of her argument then why not allow a vote, its simple she will lose yet again to the GOP and the President so she is afraid to allow the vote.
I have said it before the Democrats have long wanted higher fuel costs to force people out of their cars and into public transportation to justify its costs and so the pols can have more control over where you live and work. This is in tune with the environuts and the long held goals of Democrats for social engineering and has little if nothing to do with the environment.