US House Republicans slam Democrats on energy

09 November 2007 21:55  [Source: ICIS news]

WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--Republicans charged on Friday that Democrats have blocked efforts to increase US domestic energy production even as oil prices climb closer to $100/bbl, suggesting that Democrats want energy costs high for political reasons.

 

Representative Joe Barton (Republican-Texas), ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that “If Democrats really want an energy bill, we’ll help them”.

 

“If they want high prices and they really secretly want people to pay more at the pump and pay more for heating oil, they’re getting their wish,” Barton said.

 

Barton was among a half-dozen Republican members of the House energy action task force who convened a press conference to attack what they term the Democrats’ “no energy energy bill”.

 

Democrat-sponsored energy bills now pending in Congress would increase fees and taxes on domestic hydrocarbon production to fund expanded research and development of biofuels, energy efficiencies and conservation.

 

US chemical producers are largely dependent on natural gas as both a feedstock and energy source. Amid a four-fold increase in the North American price of natural gas since 2000, chemical firms and a broad array of other US manufacturers have been pressing Congress to end a 26-year-old moratorium on offshore energy development.

 

Barton and others noted that the price of oil was around $55/bbl when Democrats took control of Congress in January this year and that oil is now nearing $100/bbl.

 

Representative Roy Blunt (Republican-Missouri), the second-ranking Republican in the House, said:  “Part of the reason gas prices are higher is that every proposal the Democrats have put on the table reduces energy production and doesn’t increase energy production anywhere in the country.  A lot of what happens in the energy market is what people think is going to happen, and there is no energy production in the Democrats’ energy bill.”

 

Barton charged that Democrats blocked earlier efforts in Congress to open areas in Alaska and in US offshore regions to oil and gas production, adding:  “If those areas were in production today, and the US were producing not eight million barrels a day but 12 or 13 million barrels a day, would the price of oil be $98 and would gasoline be over $5 a gallon?”

 

Representative Marsha Blackburn (Republican-Tennessee) accused Democrats of causing “a crisis of inaction”. 

 

“We have a Democrat leadership that is refusing to do something on energy,” she said.

 

Neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-California), chief sponsor of the Democrats' energy bill, or her spokesman was immediately available for comment on Friday.  However, Pelosi has charged that the Bush administration has failed to advance US energy development during its seven years in office, a period when oil prices quadrupled.

 

She said her bill, HR-3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act, will "invest in homegrown biofuels to strengthen our national security, lower energy prices, create jobs, promote energy efficiency and reduce the threat of global warming".

 

"We will vote soon to pass this bill and send it to the president for his signature," she said.

 

The House leadership may schedule a vote on the energy bill as early as next week, sources said.

By: Joe Kamalick
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