Republicans own our federal government. And they have for years. But now that the American people are beginning to see the fruit of their awful
policies, they invite us to step through the looking glass, and believe that the Republicans are really just powerless observers.
Take Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. He is two heartbeats away from the Presidency, and the most powerful member of the House of Representatives (if you exclude Tom DeLay). He launched his own blog yesterday. And boy is he mad at the oil companies.
In his first entry, Hastert demands answers. He says:
Speaking of the Hurricane season, renewed attention has been brought to the way we refine gasoline in this country. Today, energy companies started reporting their 3rd quarter earnings, and while Americans paying were record prices at the pump, energy companies were making record profits.
This is America. And Republicans don't believe in punishing success. But what are these oil companies doing to bring down the cost of oil and natural gas? They haven't built a refinery here in America since the 1970's. They've built refineries overseas, but nothing here at home.
We want some answers and you folks out there in the blogosphere do too. When are new refineries going to be built here in America? When is the Alaska pipeline deal going to be signed so we can get natural gas to consumers quicker? Conoco Phillips has reached an agreement with the state of Alaska on the pipeline. Exxon Mobil and BP need to do the same. These companies need to invest in America's energy infrastructure and resources. Until they do, we're going to be asking some tough questions.
Where do you start with something like this? First, Hastert is the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE! If he has questions, he doesn't need to blog them, and longingly hope that some oil company executive will stumble across it and provide him answers. All Hastert has to do is tell Joe Barton of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to haul in Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil, put him under oath, and get some answers. Here's a tip to get in role: pretend ExxonMobil is the Clinton White House.
But let's face it. Hastert won't do this and the reason is that he knows the Republican Congress has supported the very policies that have gotten the country into the energy mess it now faces.
For four years, the Administration set the agenda while the Congress sat complacently by. Once Cheney unveiled the plan in May 2001, the Administration set about implementing it. At the end of Bush's first term, Energy Secretary Bodman announced that 75% of the Cheney energy plan was implemented. By March of this year, Bodman was touting that 95% had been implemented. All of this happened before Congress even passed its energy bill.
Energy prices had been rising all along, but where was Hastert then? Gasoline prices have doubled since 2001, and Hastert sat by, content to let Cheney set the agenda.
When the House of Representatives finally passed an energy bill on July 28, 2005, Hastert told the world that our problems were solved:
Americans need this legislation to lower their energy costs, to drive economic growth and job creation and to promote greater energy independence.
...
I could go on and on about all the positive and important elements in this legislation. But I believe it's enough to say that we should support this bill and send it to the President because it's the right thing for the American people. They should expect to have an affordable, reliable, efficient, and environmentally sound supply of energy and this bill assures that they will.
But prices are high and still rising. And according to the Energy Information Administration, consumers are really going to feel the pain this winter:
On average, households heating primarily with natural gas are expected to spend about $350 (48 percent) more this winter in fuel expenditures. Households heating primarily with heating oil can expect to pay, on average, $378 (32 percent) more this winter. Households heating primarily with propane can expect to pay, on average, $325 (30 percent) more this winter. Households heating primarily with electricity can expect, on average, to pay $38 (5 percent) more. Should colder weather prevail, expenditures will be significantly higher.
This is not the recipe for a Merry Christmas. Maybe someone should set up a blog.