Re: Feckless Pelosi


On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:42:51 -0700 (PDT), mpm <mpmillard@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Jul 15, 4:14 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
Feckless Pelosi...

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=300927847223162

Feckless To Reckless, Pelosi Should Resign

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 14, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: With oil hitting $147, Nancy Pelosi finally admits energy
is a problem. But instead of drilling for it, she's cooked up a new
drain-the-reserves scheme. It's pure politics at a time of crisis. She
ought to resign.

Read More: Energy

Any leader with an energy record as derelict as Speaker Pelosi's ought
to step down. Where she once was just incompetent and irresponsible,
she has now — with her latest scheme to fix oil prices — become
dangerous.

Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from
America's huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won't allow it. She just
wants to empty our Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short-term fix to
get through Election Day.

It's an irresponsible suggestion, signaling not only an ignorance of
how the economy works but also a willingness to place the nation at
risk in the case of emergency.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi sent a letter to President Bush urging him to
release a "small portion" of the nation's 706 million barrels of
strategic-reserve oil to bring down prices. Regardless of how one
feels about whether reserves should be held at all, two big problems
stand out with Pelosi's tiny demand.

One, she's proposing a misappropriation of the reserves. The U.S. oil
stockpile is a 58-day cushion for emergencies that today are all
possible. If Israel attacks Iran, for example, and prices double
again. Or if Hugo Chavez cuts off his supplies, as he threatened to do
as recently as Sunday.

The reserve is there to cushion the blow of a market disruption; it's
not an open-market mechanism to manipulate prices for political ends.

Two, Pelosi has finally admitted that supply matters, something that
contrasts with her entire legislative record. We count 14 energy
actions to suppress supply on her Web site just since 2005.

She has blocked efforts to open Alaska to drilling, denounced fossil
fuels, blamed oil companies for high gasoline prices, voted for
biotech boondoggles and condemned speculators.

"Our coasts need lasting protection from oil and gas drilling," she
declared Dec. 6, 2006, after Democrats won control of Congress.
Missing are any moves against petrotyrant regimes who drive prices
skyward, or even lip service to the idea of ensuring supply through
drilling.

Pelosi downplays her proposal as modest because it's a "small" portion
of the reserves to spend. And look what happened in 2000, she says,
when an SPR release authorized by President Clinton lowered gasoline
prices nearly 20%.

But she's not fooling anyone. Then, like now, an election was coming
up.

With Congress' public approval at a subterranean 9% and falling, the
speaker must be starting to realize that November may not be the
Democratic cakewalk that pundits predict.

President Bush, however, isn't about to be suckered into releasing the
reserves just long enough for pump prices to fall by Election Day,
thereby saving Democrats' skins so they can carry on their
drill-nothingism for an additional two years.

The president needs to do two things with Pelosi's proposal: First,
tell her "no," unless she comes up with a plan to open up more
drilling. Second, expose it for what it is — a bid to paint Bush as
the problem to distract from her own sorry record.

In playing politics with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the speaker
has moved beyond the incompetence and irresponsibility that have
characterized her leadership to date.

It borders on reckless, something we cannot tolerate in such dangerous
times.

                                        ...Jim Thompson
[snip sig left by feckless newsreader :-]

On the other hand, measures to encourage the continued over-
consumption of oil just put the problem off until later. And, likely,
make it more difficult so solve at that later time. So in that
regard, I think Polosi has it basically "right".

I have not heard anyone say opening up new leases today will affect
oil prices, or oil availability. True, it may affect market
confidence, but wouldn't that be a short-term boost until the reality
sets in that it takes years from exploration-to-pump.?

The country definitely needs alternative fuels, and preferably (though
not essential?) a soft-landing until we get there. I don't personally
see how opening up new leases helps, but I'm not against them for the
same reason.

I do see investors taking a short position in oil, in the days
following the opening of such leases.....

I think the very mention of truly allowing drilling will drop the
international pricing and kick the speculating in the ***.

Doing nothing will get us a depression... go ahead, make my day ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
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"It isn't that democrats are ignorant. Far from it... it's just that
they know so much that just isn't so" -Ronald Reagan
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