On June 18, 2008 Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Democratic Party Whip in the U.S. Senate, told Chicago Public Radio, “Our energy policy is not going to be solved by drilling”.
Upon returning from his Fourth of July holiday he told the media, "I’m open to drilling and responsible production," Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin told The Wall Street Journal, adding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could also support the move.
Freshman Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri must have fallen off her Democratic donkey and had a conversion as well on her way to the Drilling Damascus, when she said last week that she too could now support new drilling. Only weeks before she had denounced it.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate must have gotten an earful from their angry constituents over the holiday weekend regarding the price of gasoline. What else would cause Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri to have the epiphany they seem to have had on supporting new oil and natural gas exploration here at home.
The one big catch is that all three want those who hold current oil leases to drill there first before they would approve additional drilling.
Durbin, Reid and McCaskill are all lawyers. Their combined years of experience in business, is zero. They have never worked in the private sector and have never rubbed two nickels together to try to make an honest dollar. They are career politicians who like to spend other people’s money and tell those who take the risks what they can and can’t do.
And the real scary thing is they know absolutely nothing about the oil and gas business they are making far reaching public policy decisions about.
Their standard bearer for President, Barack Obama also has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to oil leases and how they work. See what the Wall Street Journal has to say about Obama on this subject. Perhaps he should squeeze in a seminar on how the oil business works into his schedule instead of just flapping his gums on an issue he doesn’t know a dadburned thing about.
Unfortunately the media who is equally clueless on how oil leases work, let’s Obama and his fellow Democrats, get away with dispensing false and misleading information on this key point in the energy debate.
And remember, at the current barrel price of oil, if the oil companies who hold those leases thought they could get oil from those tracts of land they would be doing so right now. With advanced imaging technology they can tell how much oil is there and also what it would take to get it out. Here is an “Oil and Gas Leases for Dummies” primer that explains how things work in the real world not that Fantasyland on the Potomac that Durbin, Reid and McCaskill inhabit.
Democrats are scrambling for cover because a healthy majority of Americans now want more exploration for domestic sources of oil and natural gas. They don’t buy the silly argument that taxing the oil company’s so-called “windfall profits” will do a blessed thing to produce more energy and they are smart enough to know that real alternatives aren’t coming anytime soon.
For years Democrats have been playing to the Coastal and Urban Liberals on energy issues and not really caring what the regular folks in “fly over” country thought. And as long as gasoline prices were reasonable they got away with it. With Durbin, Reid and McCaskill’s announcements those days are now officially over.
And this could not have come at a worse time for them as their presumptive nominee for President, Barack Obama is trying to woo those same hard working folks in the heartland who drive pickups and SUVs and don’t own a beach house in Malibu like his friends in Hollywood.
For politicians, nothing focuses the mind more than angry voters. And while this is probably not enough to keep the Democrats from losing their majorities in the House and Senate in 2008, if they also capture the White House this November, all the weight of the voter’s anger will rest on their shoulders alone in 2009 and beyond.
For Democrats, on the critical issue of energy, the chickens are finally coming home to roost.