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Politico...
Gas prices rev up
Congress
By Darren Goode
5/2/11
AP Photo (edited)
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines. If you can afford to, that is.
Congress returns Monday after a two-week spring break during which
members faced constituent angst back home over high gas prices, and
lawmakers are ready to make some noise of their own.
“It’s the single most subject that people talk about to me,” said Rep.
Lou Barletta, a Republican freshman from eastern Pennsylvania. “If
every member went home and got beat up over gas prices as a group in
Washington, we might have more serious talks about what to do.”
But there is scant evidence the timeworn ideas that House and Senate
leaders are putting on the table will do anything other than score
political points.
The GOP will continue its campaign to blame President Barack Obama and
limited offshore drilling since the gulf spill, and Democrats will
point to Big Oil’s high profits and market speculators and suggest
tapping the nation’s oil reserve.
As of Sunday, a gallon of regular gasoline cost an average of $3.94,
according to AAA. One month ago, it cost $3.62 per gallon.
“Nothing concentrates the mind like $4-a-gallon gasoline,” former Sen.
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) told POLITICO. The problem is many pending ideas
are “shop worn and tired.”
House Republicans have three bills to boost offshore oil and gas
drilling ready to go as they advance the argument that more domestic
production is a key method to lowering gas prices mainly set by the
global price of crude oil.
“When I listen to my constituents about the challenges they face,
skyrocketing cost of gasoline is at the top of the list,” Oklahoma Rep.
James Lankford said in his introduction to Saturday’s GOP radio
address, quickly noting that gas prices have nearly doubled since
January 2009.
One bill expected on the floor Thursday requires the Obama
administration to conduct offshore lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico
and off the coast of Virginia that have been delayed or canceled. A
second bill likely on the floor this week gives the Interior Department
30 days to make a decision on Gulf of Mexico permits.
A third bill from House Natural Resources Committee Republicans —
likely on the floor next week — forces the administration to move on a
five-year-lease plan to advance a goal of producing 3 million barrels
of oil domestically per day by 2027.
The White House and congressional Democrats say companies are not
properly tapping into leases that are currently available and that
party members have other ideas to reduce the pain at the pump.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), ranking member of the Budget Committee,
Sunday suggested tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “We’ve seen a
supply disruption as a result of Libya, which has helped feed a
speculative bubble,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“It’s about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day from Libya — but that has
then fed the speculative bubble,” Van Hollen added. “If you want to pop
that bubble, you have to take some action.”
Read the rest of the story at Politico
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