I have always heard the way you tell if someone is lying is by watching the eyes. Unless, it’s a Texan then you know when the lips move. That’s not true. It may be true with Hillary and Obama, but not with Texas Senator John Cornyn. Senator Cornyn was on Fox News this morning talking about gasoline prices. For the first time in my memory an elected official at any level told the truth about our energy problem. He reiterated that there is a supply of 85 million barrels a day and demand is pushing up against that. With China’s appetite for oil, he doesn’t expect this to ease.
Senator Cornyn said we will not get lower prices until we address the supply side of our problem. He said we need to drill in Alaska and offshore, even offshore Virginia. He acknowledged the states were in favor of this. He said we need to go after the oil shale in Wyoming. He said we have more than enough coal if we use it wisely. He proposes more nuclear. He believes we can add 3 million barrels a day to our supply if we try, and do it in an environmentally safe way. He thinks the summer gas tax holiday just gives people false hope. Adding supply and reducing imports will take pressure off the world supply squeeze and may lower prices.
At the same time Senator Clinton finally mustered up the courage to meet with Bill O’Reilly. When asked what she would do about high gas prices, she came back with : summer tax holiday financed by windfall profits tax on the oil companies and she will pressure OPEC. She remains steadfast against any supply side initiatives including nuclear which she has voted against 7 times. She is so aligned with the environmentalists that she can’t agree to any of this.
Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part but I believe this was a trial balloon sent up by the Republican Party to get viewer response. Let the Democrats play the same old game of blaming Big Oil and trying to solve the problem using the same failed methods from the past, Republicans can go on the offense with supply side solutions. The Democrats have certainly led the objections to all things on the supply side. They do plan to raise gasoline prices with the carbon cap and by taxing oil companies. If the senator gets the right response, this may become part of the party platform this year. It also speaks to jobs since doing all of this would create jobs and doing nothing as the Democrats espouse, has cost jobs. Finally, someone may be looking at this logically.
It would make for an interesting campaign if the battle lines were drawn against the two schools of thought on energy. The Republicans saying we will do the fundamental things we need to do to save our economy. The Democrats saying we will do the fundamental things we need to do to protect the world’s environment, too bad about our economy.
Hillary taking on OPEC, give me a break. She’s got a better chance solving world hunger.
But, not our president. While congress is having hearings on high food prices, President Bush wants to send $700 million in your tax dollars to help world hunger while doing nothing about the root cause, ethanol. It’s Rumsfeld all over again. Some say he’s stubborn, others say he’s incapable of good decisions, and others just call him dumb. Regardless of what it is, he’s hosing us twice. Once on the tax support for ethanol and again to fix the problem it causes. Thank God there are term limits because we need a change.