Politico...
GOP to make hay in
May over gas
Republicans are getting ready to capitalize on record prices at the
pump with a May focus on oil and gasoline.
The government shutdown battle put the issue on the back burner even
though prices at the pump have been rising steadily since February.
Now, with President Barack Obama already on the defensive, the GOP is
ready to pounce.
House Republicans are planning bill introductions, hearings, markups
and floor votes on legislation aimed at expanding domestic oil
production in response to high gasoline prices.
The plain truth that there is realistically nothing Congress can do in
the short- or mid-term to affect gas prices that won’t get in the way
of both parties trying to score political points by complaining the
other is not addressing the problem.
“The White House and the rest of the Democrats who run Washington are
terrified about the political impact of gas prices, because many of
their policies — like the national energy tax — are explicitly designed
to raise energy prices,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House
Speaker John Boehner.
Obama on Thursday pointed to high gasoline prices for his sagging poll
numbers. “My poll numbers go up and down depending on the latest
crisis, and right now gas prices are weighing heavily on people,” he
said at a Los Angeles fundraiser.
The latest Gallup tracking poll gives the president a 43 percent
approval rating and a 49 percent disapproval rating. A divided Congress
fares far worse — a 17 percent approval rating that is identical to
right after last November’s midterm election.
The average price for a gallon of unleaded is $3.85, up 98 cents from a
year ago and more than 30 cents higher than it was in early April 2008
before prices averaged a record of $4.11 a gallon in July that year.
Prices are already higher in some areas of the country. AAA reports
that California, Illinois and New York have average prices of more than
$4, and White House pool reporters have noted Obama’s motorcade passed
Los Angeles gas stations with prices of $4.35 per gallon.
In 2008, $4 gasoline led to House Republicans resorting to floor
theatrics to draw attention to their calls for new oil exploration,
followed by the famed “drill, baby, drill” chants at the Republican
National Convention that September. Now, the GOP controls the floor
agenda and plans to use it when they get back from the two-week spring
recess.
“I can promise that we are going to be very active,” said a House
majority aide.
In March, House Republicans unveiled their “American Energy
Initiative,” a broad pledge to “stop government policies that are
driving up gas prices; expand American energy production to lower costs
and create more jobs; and promote an ‘all of the above’ strategy to
increase all forms of American energy.”
As part of that strategy, House Natural Resources Committee Republicans
last week passed three bills aimed at expanding and expediting offshore
oil and gas drilling. A spokesman for Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.)
said he expects at least one of those bills to be on the floor the
first week back from recess.
That first bill is likely to be one that gives the Interior Department
30 days to make a decision on offshore drilling permits in the Gulf of
Mexico, allowing for two 15-day extensions of permits that were not
already approved before the Obama administration’s drilling moratorium
installed after the BP oil spill last year.
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