Posted on 05/15/2008 3:41:41 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Worried about gas prices hitting $4 a gallon and beyond? Imagine if they were $6, $7 or even $8 a gallon. Those levels are a certain possibility should Congress pass cap-and-trade legislation, which could face a vote in early June.
Oil is trading at record levels, in excess of $120 a barrel. Leading Republican Sens. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) both told the Business & Media Institute (BMI) energy prices would drastically increase if the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 2191) is signed into law.
“The studies show it would be directly affected, would be a $1.50 a gallon, in addition to what it is today,” Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said to (BMI).
Inhofe spoke at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on May 15 to introduce the “We Get It!” campaign – a program founded by evangelical Christians that question the merits of global warming alarmism. According to Inhofe, the bill will make it to the floor of the Senate on June 2.
“So now I think we need to concentrate on what it will cost the American people,” he said during the press conference. “To try to put it in a perspective people understand, if we had ratified, according to the Wharton School of Economics, the Kyoto Treaty, back five years ago, it would have cost about – between $300 and $330 billion – that was the range they had. This bill that’s up today is $471 billion – far more than that. And the question is, what do you get for it?”
Sessions, a member of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, went a step further. He cited sources that suggest the increase could be as much as $5 a gallon.
“[L]et me tell you what’s heading down the tracks,” Sessions said to BMI on May 14. “In a few weeks, we expect that the cap-and-trade legislation that’s been voted out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) Environment and Public Works Committee will be on the floor and according to the Environmental Protection Agency it will increase gas prices by $1.50. The National Association of Manufacturers says it will increase it as much as $5 per gallon.”
Sessions proposed that money should be spent on energy investment versus a regulatory bureaucracy to enforce the provisions of the Lieberman-Warner bill.
“So instead of actually coming forward with any idea about what to do about rising prices, we’ll soon be voting on a bill that has already passed committee, has some Republican support, that would surge the price of energy, create a bureaucracy – and I just don’t think is the right thing to do,” Sessions said. “I’d rather spend our money in investing in the new the technologies, helping get nuclear power online, improving batteries, researching cellulosic ethanol. Let’s spend our money on that without creating cap-and-trade bureaucracies that have not worked in Europe.”
According to the Energy Information Administration, the average price of a gallon of gas in Europe ranges from $8 to $9 a gallon.
Gas prices have been one of the most reported news stories of the past several years. Reporters have repeatedly warned of prices approaching the levels Inhofe and Sessions warned about. However, journalists have consistently complained about oil company profits, not taxes, making gas prices higher.
On NBC’s May 15 “Today,” host Matt Lauer interviewed ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) CEO Rex Tillerson. Lauer quizzed Tillerson on oil companies’ profit margins and higher gas prices, but Lauer didn’t ask Tillerson about the potential impact Lieberman-Warner would have on the price of gasoline.
“Well, the problem we have right now, and fortunately we have several months before the election, to make sure the American people know that this is a supply problem that is causing the gas prices to go up,” Inhofe said to BMI. “You know the Democrats, right down party lines – they do not want to drill in ANWR, they do not want to drill offshore. They don’t want the tar sands. They don’t want more energy. And they don’t want refinery capacity.”
The Senate defeated a measure to drill in ANWR on May 13. The vote, an amendment to another bill, was killed by a vote of 42-56, largely along party lines. Only one Democrat voted for the amendment, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), and five Republicans voting against it.
Inhofe blamed Democratic policies going as far back as the Clinton administration.
"The Democrats are the reason we have high prices at the pumps, and we’re not going to be able to alleviate that until we start producing again in America,” Inhofe added. “And I knew this was happening way back, well 10 years ago, when President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to drill in ANWR. I said on the Senate floor that day 10 years ago that in 10 years we would regret this. It’s now 10 years later.”
Didn’t the Senate vote recently to not drill for oil off our shores and ANWAR? Those idiots just don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. I, along with most everyone here would hate for this country to go into a depression. If the Fools on the Hill don’t care if we leap into another depression, why should we? They are the ones causing this totaly avoidable inevitablilty to occur. Everyone knows what 5,6, 8, 10 dollar pump prices mean. EVERYTHING we buy will skyrocket. Food prices will be outrageous. Prices will go up but not our paychecks. I hope those pricks on the Hill know that. They insulate themselves from the rest of the country and expect us to keep voting their sorry a$$es back in every time. It is past time for a good citizens revolt. It wouldn’t be pretty but they need to be made unquestionably aware of the fact that we are hurting. They need to be made to give a REAL dam#. Sadly, the majority of the sheeple will just sit back and accept things as they are. This doesn’t need to happen.
Let Obama win, let gas prices go to $10, let income taxes go through the roof. Maybe it’ll cure enough Americans of their infatuation with Euro-style socialism that we can finally turn things around. Or maybe not.
“So instead of actually coming forward with any idea about what to do about rising prices, we’ll soon be voting on a bill that has already passed committee,..... has some Republican support,
“But it’s for the good of our children’s future”
That’s what we’re going to hear in response to any complaints about the negative effects of the so called global warming solutions. I brought a lot of cons to the attention of some envirowhackos on another forum and they just gave me the above.
These people, if they aren’t among the groups who see the global warming scare as a way to gain political power, are total fanatics. They don’t care how these “solutions” negatively affects us. To them, the ends don’t just justify the means, the ends are all that matter.
He lost me too. Obama/Clinton had almost persuaded me to vote for him (or, at least, against the socialists). The problem is, I can't tell much difference between Obama/Clinton and McCain. McCain is little more than a social democrat at a 10% discount.
I will vote. I might hold my nose and vote for Bob Barr (been holding my nose since 1984). I will vote for the GOP down ballot unless they parrot McCain's enviromarxism.
I agree. Inhofe needs all of the support we can deliver in a post-rational age. At the very least, Freepers ought to email him notes of support and encouragement.
If you think environmarxism is the most serious threat we face (I do), Inhofe is liberty's best friend in Washington.
If McCain wants my vote he has to earn it, and just having an R doesn’t do it for me.
Those don't stand for something will fall for anything.
McCain is a Republican like Dole. Put either in a traditionally Democrat state and they would have comfortably served in the opposition. Neither is a principled conservative.
Let the Democrats take the blame.
Good thing the GOP is going to nominate McCain. He’ll stop this global warming nonsense. Oh, wait, nevermind.
I take comfort in the fact that this is what most Americans want, and the pain and suffering that is coming our way is what they deserve.
At least I’ll be able to telecommute.
Reap the rewards of your ignorance and stupidity, bitches.
The Dems seem to have a full proof excuse when their policies lead to high gas prices: Just Blame Big Oil and pass some meaningless law about the National Strategic Petro Reserve. With a lot of help from the MSM, the US public is buying this crap hook like and sinker.
Never underestimate the stupidity of Americans success of the public school system. The socialists that now make up the majority of the citizenry actually want it to got to $8 or more per gallon, but are being mostly sly and quiet about it right now.
Forget al Qaeda. We, through our elected representatives, are more dangerous to ourselves than they could ever hope to be. We're killing ourselves more slowly and painfully than they could hope for.
I still say the gov’t wants to force us into mass transit.
You mean Warner is a Republican? You're kidding me right? He's one of the best Democrats the senate has has. Of course Senate Democrats Specter, Hatch, Snowe, Collins, and Dole, give him a run for his money.
You mean Warner is a Republican? You're kidding me right? He's one of the best Democrats the senate has has. Of course Senate Democrats Specter, Hatch, Snowe, Collins, and Dole, give him a run for his money.
Sadly shaking my head, and wondering why...
I must agree with you.
The gas lines that were by far the worst were those of the OPEC embargo after the October ‘73 war. We should have nuked the OPEC countries off the map, sent in the troops and oil patch workers, planted the flag, and told the rest of the world to go intercourse itself. Of course, we could still do that...
Thanks geo. Funny thing — the “GW legislation” didn’t get debated and passed by the White House, it got done by the Congress.
The Bum Rap on Biofuels
American Thinker | 5-13-08 | Herbert Meyer
Posted on 05/14/2008 3:59:06 AM PDT by Renfield
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015711/posts
Dems and High Oil Prices
http://www.americanthinker.com | 5-13-08 | Patrick Casey
Posted on 05/14/2008 8:31:09 PM PDT by NoLibZone
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2016164/posts
Drilling for an Energy Plan
The Potomac News | May 15, 2008 | Charles Reichley
Posted on 05/14/2008 9:21:32 PM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2016174/posts
I'm not certain ANWAR would completely do away with our foreign oil habit, but any reduction would help and it would certainly mean less funds for those who want to kill us. Imagine, 9-11 might not have happened if “he who must not be named” hadn't had oil money from Saudi Arabia, et al.
This is going to be worse than “Jimmy Carter”. It will be worldwide and it will be of our own design. (My son, a physicist, tells me that global warming doesn’t scare him nearly as much as some of the “extraordinary measures” humanity is going to take to try to “remedy” the situation.)
I want to know if, in ten years, when this global warming thing is found to be bogus, are we going to at least get an apology? Just asking.
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