Posted on 07/21/2008 9:40:55 AM PDT by americaprd
Election: There's little doubt voters want more drilling if even congressional candidates are starting to trek to Alaska to urge more oil development. Seven are there now. That's a wake-up call to Congress.
Congressional challenger Craig Williams of Pennsylvania spoke to us Wednesday by phone from Deadhorse, Alaska. He and six other Republican candidates think there's enough voter disapproval with Congress' failure to do anything about gas prices to win this election, even in a season when Democrats are believed to have the advantage.
"We've got a Democratic Congress doing absolutely nothing. Even the Republicans (before them) didn't do anything. So we are now paying $4 a gallon for gas. It's an emergency," Williams said.
The House, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has gone well beyond complacency and into obstruction.
"We've got about a dozen bills ready for the floor of Congress, and they won't allow any of the legislation to move forward," Williams said. Democrats "are afraid of a Republican amendment on an energy bill, and won't allow it before the election."
That's why the seven candidates have taken their campaign to Alaska, the state that could easily overshadow any other as an energy producer.
According to Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association in Anchorage, Alaska's two big areas under production, the Cook Inlet/Kenai Peninsula and the North Slope, are begining to deplete.
"Other areas to develop are in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Petroleum Reserve, the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea," Crockett said.
That is, if they can be opened to drilling. Williams and the other six believe a profound shift in public sentiment is under way, which is why they visited Prudhoe Bay, ANWR, and a handful of villages in the area.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
There really would be a “profound shift in public sentiment” if Republicans would get out in front of the public making the case that (1) enviro fanatics have locked up vast resources that we need; (2) the Demagogues are the reason for high oil prices; (3) there is no real risk to the environment at all from having some postage-stamp sized drilling platforms across a mere 2,000 acres of barren wasteland in the midst of so many MILLIONS of acres of untouched Alaskan lands.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is playing right into the Dems hands on the “use it or lose it” bs, without any further digging into the issue. When McCain proposed the gas tax moratorium ,the press was all over him.
But they are giving the Dems a free pass on this issue and making the case for them to the American people. So frustrating!
I’m impressed they went to the North Slope. I’d be more impressed if they went in February.
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