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This special Swamp Stomper Alert
is cross-posted from BitsBlog.

Let’s take a moment to look at the Democrat response to the President’s weekly radio address… where Energy is the issue.

Joe Donnely, Congressional Democrat is part of our energy problem, not the solution.

Good morning. This is Congressman Joe Donnelly of Indiana’s Second Congressional District. Today it is my pleasure to talk to you about a few of Congress’ recent accomplishments on an issue that I believe will help define the future of our nation: energy independence and energy security. Like many Americans across the nation, the people of northern Indiana have felt the negative effects of an energy policy that favored big oil companies at the expense of working families and businesses.

In the last six months, oil prices have increased by $25 a barrel to a record high of $102 this past week. In fact, in the past two weeks, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas increased 17 cents to $3.15 per gallon. For working families trying to make ends meet and for businesses working to strengthen our economy, this is a recipe for stress and struggle.

Ummm.. Wait. Hold on, Joe.

Profits?

First off, since when did profit become a dirty word? In any event your perception is unsurprisingly skewed. You apparently figure that all that increase is pure profit. Can anyone in Congress not know that oil company profits the real ones… you know, after taxes and exploration and development costs are removed, not the gross profits you cite…as a percentage have been going down for some years? Oil company profits in fact are lower than most other types of enterprise… once you factor in taxes, and exploration costs and other overhead. Government is in fact the biggest percentage of expense for oil these days. Your tacking on more taxes and regulations isn’t helping. It’s hurting ‘working families’, Joe.

A drilling platform; We need more, but Congress won't let us build themIndeed, let’s do some theoretical work, here and take all that profit away, and see what happens… just in theory, and for the sake of argument. Now to do this correctly, we have to assume for the moment that your proposals do not involve taking these supposed excess profits in taxes, but that the percentage normal bound for profit, just disappears. The price difference would be around 3%… a percentage which wouldn’t even scratch the surface of the costs incurred by lack of supply. But Congress will, of course, and invariably so, call these supposedly excessive profits ‘windfalls’ and tax them out of existence, and gee, Joe… those taxes get passed on to the ‘working family’ at the pump, don’t they? So in the end, your ideas will do nothing but add costs at the pump, not lessen them. And Joe; Is it really fair to say gas costs 3.15 a gallon and the opil companies are responsible for that cost, when we’re being taxed, directly, at the rate of 50c a gallon? That’s not the oil companies, Joe, that’s government. In any event; Doesn’t sound like your concern is for working families, Joe.

But let’s look further, at the reasons for the price hikes;

Product shortages.

What is the cause of these shortages? First of all, it’s a lack of domestic production, both in terms of domestic drilling for crude, and in terms of lack of refining capacity, because of the idiodic way the Democrats in Congress micromanage the oil companies, under the cover of ‘environmentalism’.

Take first, crude production. ANWR is a prime example of Congress limiting our ability to deal with our own energy needs. Our ocean floors off Florida, similarly, and indeed anywhere else we’ve managed to locate crude oil within our own borders, is where Congress has jumped in, and told us we can’t drill. If working families struggling with the high cost of fuel were really on the list of things Democrats wanted to deal with, if you really understand that the only way to lower costs is to increase available product, why are we not drilling for our own oil? You have the power to help, yet you’ve blocked our ability to provide for our own energy needs at every turn.

Here’s a peek at what we could be getting oil from, if Congress would stop bowing and scraping to the enviro-whackos and start listening to American Working Families.

A quick look at the massive oil finds... oil we could be using to break our price problems and our dependency on Arab oil. Congress won't let us.

(Graphic is courtesy of sibelle.info, which is a great source of info for this discussion.)

The issue of refining capacity is of a kind with the drilling.

Here again, government micro-management has prevented us from being able to deal effectively with energy issues in the United States. As an example; does it really make sense to have so large a percentage of our refining capacity along the gulf coast, where the next Katrina can wipe it out? Yet, attempts to establish other refining plants in recent years are so tangled in red tape, that the refiners… you know, those evil oil companies… have given up trying to deal with it…. To the point where we’ve not built a new refiery in this country since 1976. We need more refineries, but the Democrats in Congress won't let us build them.Once again, Congressional Democrats, if working families dealing with increased energy costs were the priority, could have eliminated the enviro-whacko red tape, and the excessive taxation that keeps us from providing for our own energy. But you didn’t.

Oh, and Joe; I hate to burst your bubble…. It’s called “Alternative Energy” for a reason; It’s not dependable enough to be the main source of energy. Your tilt toward E85 sounds good until you consider the added costs for food. The price of corn is going through the ceiling, thanks to what little we’ve done so far… and as Democrats and RINOs in Congress ramp this stuff up, it’s only going to get worse. Once again, the working family pays the price for your misguided nonsense.

Look, I know you come from a farm district, so you’re bucking for votes from Democrats in your own area.That’s why you’re real high on E85 ad Bio-Diesel. But let’s get real; We’re never going to be able to provide enough bio-matter to fuel ourselves… and our cars… both at once. Certainly, as a result of the attempt, the costs for each will be going up. There’s very little in the way of alternative food, Joe, and yet you would have us paying dramatically more for it, so you can keep your farmer friends in the second congressional district of Indiana, happy?

Sorry, Joe, doesn’t sound like Democrats have the welfare of the working family in mind with any of this.

But do go ahead, and prove me wrong. Let’s see you vote to reduce the red tape and taxes on oil companies, struggling to get product to us at a cost we can afford, but getting blocked by government every step of the way.

Go ahead, prove me wrong. Vote to drill in ANWR and anywhere else there is crude to be had within our own borders.Start not only calling for increased crude production, but actually having the courage to vote to arrange it. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Go ahead, prove me wrong, and vote to eliminate restrictions and red tape which prevent us from building added refining capacity. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Go ahead and prove me wrong and vote against trying to use a limited and irreplaceable food supply for fuel, which only raises food costs AND fuel costs, and has been proven to increase pollution. You have the power to do that and it’s in the interests of America that you do. You know this, yet you’ve voted against such progress repeatedly.

Somehow, Joe, I don’t think your concern for the American working family extends quite so far.

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