Background:

It is a matter of record that the United States Congress, in 1980, decreed a moratorium on offshore drilling for oil and gas. As this prohibition was also mandated by a separate presidential directive issued by George H.W. Bush, the politicians were isolating the United States from potential sources of energy despite the fact that they were spending billions of dollars on the US Department of Energy every year – an agency with the mandate, at the time of its creation, to free the United States from dependence on foreign oil. This seemingly illogical behavior arose from an attempt to avoid more incidents of severe environmental damage from drilling operations – in particular the as-much-as 3 million gallon Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969.

Of course the technology to safely drill had already improved immensely, but a techno-illiterate Congress was more driven by fear than by fact. Over the 40 years since that incident, only 850 barrels of oil have been released into the marine environment from offshore drilling and pumping. As of today, natural (i.e., unrelated to human activity) seepage from the earth introduces more oil into the marine environment than human drilling and oil extraction.

As speculators sent the price of oil from the $40 per barrel range to more than $140 per barrel in 2008, and as the United States was importing 70% of the oil it used despite the documented mandate of the Department of Energy, the USA was sending up to $700 Billion a year to nations such as Saudi Arabia, which supports the terrorist organization Al Quaida; Venezuela, which supports FARQ terrorists in Columbia; and other ‘unfriendly nations’ such as Iran, which dirties its hands by sponsoring anti-Israel terrorist organizations such as Hamas . The price of gasoline quickly exceeded $4 per gallon, which immediately affected citizens’ disposable incomes and increased the cost of doing business. To add insult to injury, the President asked the oil-supplying nations (OPEC) to help ease the cost of oil by increasing production. They not only told us to pound salt, but they reduced their production! This combination promised a reduction of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and inflation at the same time.

Recognizing both the problem and the environmentally safe state of the art in drilling technology forty years after Santa Barbara, President George W. Bush decided he knew more than the eco-terrorists, and he bravely, at great political risk, rescinded his father’s presidential order. The price of crude oil immediately dropped by $10 per barrel, so the president then requested the democratic Congress to take similar action. A drilling bill, if passed by Congress, would likely have another benefit: the further reduction in the price of oil simply by introducing the element of risk to the out-of-control oil speculators.

Senselessness

Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi  allowed her ideology and hatred of George W. Bush to rule over rationality.  She forcefully rejected the President’s request – even as Barack Obama (ahead in the polls, but not yet officially president) said he might be open to some drilling.

In a written statement, Pelosi claimed the White House drilling plan was a hoax and was designed to help big oil companies.  With a democratic majority whipped in line behind her, Pelosi called on the president once again to release some of the oil in the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve – a step the Bush administration had repeatedly rejected. Bush believed it would place our nation in jeopardy. There was only a 35 day supply of oil in the reserve, OPEC had already reduced production, and there was no guarantee that terrorism, war, or OPEC greed wouldn’t reduce production even further while US troops were in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ignoring what didn’t agree with her preconceptions about the safety of the new drilling technology, and apparently thinking it more important to cave in to her environmentalist constituents than to look after the needs of the nation, Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi single-handedly prevented a bill that would allow offshore exploration and drilling from coming to a vote on the House floor. Pelosi and her cohorts argued that there wasn’t enough oil to make a difference to the price of oil – even though nobody knew how much oil or gas might actually be found. She and her Senate partner Harry Reid then declared it would take more than five years to introduce the oil into the nation’s distribution system. They were deaf to the argument that, had they allowed exploration five years earlier, the oil would already be working its way into distribution, lowering the international price of crude, and reducing the huge trade deficits that were draining the US of its wealth. They were deaf to the fact that oil money was financing terrorist organizations such as the insurgency in Iraq, which was costing so many American lives. They ignored how oil money funded Hezbollah and Hamas, who ensure death and destruction associated with Israel’s battle for survival. They did nothing to further American energy independence in the interim period until alternative energy supplies could be developed. With such logic as exhibited by Pelosi and company, there would never be a reason to plan for anything more than a few weeks into the future.

When the sounds of financial anguish from even her own constituents (and probably echoes from members of the House in her own party) eventually grew loud enough to make Madame Pelosi rethink her position, she finally agreed to allow a bill on the House floor. The bill’s conditions were onerous to and without potential benefit for any of the participants. Being devoid of realism, Pelosi’s bill would not, even if passed, have likely instituted even exploration, never mind drilling. Among other things, the bill denied oil and gas royalties for the states whose waters would be affected. Oil companies would have to give up existing leases on interior lands for which no test holes had yet been bored in order to acquire any tracts in the offshore areas. Despite the bill’s title, there was clearly no benefit to any of the participants. So Pelosi could crow that she was opening up US sources of energy when she actually was doing no such thing.

Pelosi puts her nation and its citizens at risk in order to inflate her own ego and importance and to demonstrate the power she is able to wield. At this time in our nation’s history when power is slowly but surely being transferred from the individual states to the behemoth in Washington, D.C., we cannot accept a dangerously power hungry egomaniac like Madame Pelosi as Speaker– most particularly because the Speaker is only two bullets from the presidency.

THIS INCUMBENT MUST NOT BE RETURNED TO CONGRESS!