In election season, every vote is grist for a 30-second campaign ad, and the last weeks before the October recess are shaping up as a marathon for symbolic votes.
At the same time, the spending bills to fund the 2009 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, are unfinished or barely started. Even a resolution to continue government funding into a new administration is expected to be a highly charged vote, because it is the probable vehicle for extending a ban on offshore drilling, now set to expire on Sept. 30.
“It’s almost impossible to separate any vote or debate in Congress now from the election,” says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University in New Jersey.
“For a legislator to go to Capitol Hill and try to remove the sounds and sights of Denver and Minneapolis is impossible,” adds, referring to the parties’ national conventions in those host cities. “All of the votes are calculated in terms of how they will affect Barack Obama, John McCain, and the congressional races.”
A vote could come as early as this week over whether to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. The ban has been renewed every year since 1981 as part of the annual appropriations process. During the August recess, Republicans held 25 protests on a darkened House floor to urge Democrats to call the House back into session for an up-or-down vote on an energy bill, including a vote on more access to offshore-energy reserves.
“This is not the end of the gas price protest. This is the beginning,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana during Friday’s protest.
Aware of recent polls showing that 7 in 10 Americans now favor lifting the ban, Democrats are crafting compromise energy legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a shift, on Aug. 18 promised a vote on offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive energy plan. Previously, she had characterized GOP claims that offshore drilling could reduce energy prices as “a hoax.”
“We are trying to do the right thing here: to get a bill that will end our dependence on foreign oil,” says Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly. The legislation, still being drafted, would remove some $18 billion in existing subsidies to oil companies and increase tax incentives for renewable fuels.
It is also expected to introduce a renewable electricity standard for utilities, to rein in speculation in oil futures markets, and to require oil companies to use existing leases or lose them. Any lifting of a ban on offshore drilling will include restrictions to protect the environment.
In addition to the House leaders’ bill, a bipartisan group of members led by Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D) of Hawaii and John Peterson (R) of Pennsylvania has released its own energy plan, which would open more of the moratorium area to drilling. That bill now has 131 cosponsors, and its lead sponsors predict the final count will be closer to 200.
“It’s about America, not about party. My Republican leadership wondered what we were doing, and I said, ‘I’ll report to you when it’s done,’ ” said Representative Peterson, in a phone interview. “This was drafted without either leadership or their top staff having any input. We think we have a good bill.”
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- MeganMcKenzie
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- Vierotchka
- added September 09, 2008
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I am sick of the Democrats compromising when it is apparent that drilling is no answer. It is not clear that we will even have a democrat in office in January 09 so what in the hell are they compromising for?
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I'm with you....are people that naive to believe that drilling which has been told time and time again isn't going to produce one drop of oil until years down the road? I'm about sick of this craziness! I guess this is a testiment to our lack of education, I guess if people would actually educate themselves on the issue they would know that this is not a solution.
Did you hear Iran is now converting their cars over to use natural gas? Did you hear about what they are doing in Brazil, with sugarcane?
We don't have a clue...how sad!
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Every Autocratic Dictator of a Petrostate is laughing to the bank right now. The more we drill, the more Resource Nationalism holds international sway. By the admission of our own Energy Information Administration, this is true.
Who's the patriot now?
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We need to produce our own energy. It is not economically viable for us to send $700 billion a year to other countries. Eventually we will move to renewable energy, but we can't do that yet. In the mean time we need to use all energy avenues, including offshore drilling. I think the Pickens Plan is the way to go.
And tbiagg, "We don't have a clue"? I disagree.
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Is it any surprise that McCain went with the Governor of a big oil state? It sounds like McCain/Palin would be more of the same Oil War and wasteful goverment spending.
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- celestialceiling
- 10 months ago
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And, America can't do what Brazil is doing with Sugarcane. I wish we could, but it is simply not possible.
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Kill Baby Kill.
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- stephenthomson
- 10 months ago
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"REPUBLICANS REVERSE COURSE ON PRO LIFE AND DECIDE TO DRILL BABIES"
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Why are we so against oil drilling especially on our land? New forms of energy are great but i only car about the one that i put in my car. Unless theses wind turbines are going on my car but wait damn i need an electric motor too!!! I think im going to vote to keep things cheaper until i have the money or the cheap technology to use these other ideas.
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- TheRedSephiroth
- 10 months ago
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Face it! Gas is not going to get cheaper. The rest of the world has known it for decades, why are we so deaf, dumb & blind?
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Renewable energy will only become cheaper and more available when we have government funding to develop these technologies.
If we all want change so bad, we need to think long term. And oil is certainly not a long term plan.
Whatever happened to the electric car?
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- celestialceiling
- 10 months ago
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Today oil producers stated that due to the dropping price of gas and oil they may have to slow production to stabilize prices. While we can't control foreign oil prices, our own domestic oil prices mirror them make our oil companies millions and billions.
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pathetic, that picture is so pathetic!!!
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- alexandrek
- 10 months ago
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Huh? Congress is going to do something? 11% of something? Really...what have they done? Yeah.....they are a waste.of.space.
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They killed the electric car back in the 90s...who is they? I would imagine big oil. The govt took all electric cars that were running in CA and smashed them in the junkyards. People were very unhappy about that and questioned the action but no answer, just took the cars and smashed them. Good documentary on HBO if you get to see it. How's that for patriotism!?
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We need real, long term solutions. Not band-aids on big oozing wounds.
I think our elected officials should start taking I.Q. tests. This is what happens when we prefer beer guzzlers to intellectual snobs. Let's start thinking again.
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If Opec is adamant about keeping gas prices up, they can drill every state West of Rhode Island and it wont make a difference as to how much it costs.
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Thomas Friedman had a great line about "drill baby drill." He equated it to people on the eve of the IT boom screaming "IBM electric typewriters."
If you read up on the issue, offshore drilling will do nothing for the price of oil, nothing to decrease our dependence on foreign oil and nothing for our energy independence.
Offshore drilling is an issue that is keeping us from talking about real solutions that will impact our energy independence and economy.
The people screaming drill baby drill are just mis-informed.
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There's no such thing as energy independence, just like there's no such thing as actual independence.
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Drilling for more oil is a temporary solution. The issue of whether it would decrease gas prices is irrelevant. We should vote with the future in mind. Even if the benefits of drilling could be reaped instantaneously after we drill, we would find ourselves with the same problem years down the line.
Time to do what humans have been best at since our existence-- adapt. Advance and employ modern science!
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How appropriate. The state of Alaska looks like a big splat of blood on the front of that shirt.
Oil for blood. Blood for oil The two intermingle and interchange. It doesn't matter to the republican sheep, though.
Drill, baby, drill! Fill our pockets with cash 'cause at this point, that is all that matters. We will just buy away the sorrows of the poor with fast food and video games and send the middle class off to fight for our oil!
It makes me sick.
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That's what i thought Vixen!
There are so few pristine places left in this country, I can't believe that anyone who has ever seen Alaska would campaign to destroy it. The republicans need to be stopped.
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- mookster_07
- 10 months ago
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Talk about propaganda from one side or the other....
...drilling doesn't have to equal BAD.
It can be done correctly and whether or not you agree is it not better that they do drilling in a way that doesn't harm the environment nearly as much as it has previously?
Or are y'all just as bad as the extremest that state DRILL DRILL DRILL? Being so far on one or the other side is no better.
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Thomas Friedman stole my tagline!
My line was: oil is a dead end energy technology. A technology that has reached the very end of it's lifecycle. Oil drilling is like building 1986 era pagers when the rest of the world has moved on to iPhones!
But Friedman likes to compare it to investing billions of dollars in IBM electric typewriters while the rest of the world has moved on to Pentium 4 laptops with 2 gigs of RAM.
Eh. I like my iPhone example better. Anyhoo...all Republican roads lead to the same backward place.
"Love 1958? Hate Living In The 21st Century? VOTE REPUBLICAN! Keeping America Techologically, Socially and Spiritually Backward For The Last 50 years!"
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I did not sleep at all last night. Every time I went to sleep McCain and Palin saying Drill drill drill would wake me up. I do not choose for this to be my reality or the reality of our country. It sounds like a lot of us think the same. I am going to continue to reduce my gasoline consumption irrespective of prices. I am only supporting energy conscious politicians from local government on up. I am upping my donation to NRDC, Wildlife Federation and WomenCount Pac who are working to help get Obama elected.
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- MeganMcKenzie
- 10 months ago
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