US House Guerilla War (Petition)

After my blog yesterday, I was home turned on the TV and cspan had the Senate on, it was about 6:00pm and 3 guys were starting to discuss the Republican plan to make us less dependent on foreign energy. Now I know (almost) that Newt is behind the coming ground swell in the House.
Newt is from Ga. Two of the three were from Ga. Lynn Westmoreland and Dr. Tom Price the other was Dan Burton from Indiana.

The main part of the 1+½ hr talk was to showcase the plan Lynn Westmoreland was putting for to cut our energy dependency. This wasn’t pie in the sky talk with vague promises. The program was very simple based on the notion that yes we can do something about the problem. Congressman Westmoreland revealed a large nearly 4 ft tall petition, listing all the congressmen in alphabetical order by state with a box next to their name as to whether they would sign the petition that simply asked if they supported increasing American oil production to lower prices.
Along with that the three keys to doing that included: 1, increase on shore drilling 2, increase deep water drilling 3, Build new refineries. That’s it.

Simple enough to understand hard to say no too. I believe it was Mr. Westmoreland that stated he got the inspiration from all the petitions going around to do just that on line. He specifically mentioned “American Solutions” and their website which is one of Newt’s websites, which is where Newt has his petition I mentioned in the previous post. Westmoreland mentioned ½ million signatures last night before I went to bed there were 607,000. Newt has seized on the internet with both hands. He is head and shoulders ahead of anyone else. Congress I’m happy to see is willing to learn from his experiences. I learned a lot about the debate to come from this informal discussion on the House floor. These three were well versed in the solution to the problem. Their’s was the common sense approach. The Dems argue that the oil companies have 48 million acres under lease. These guys point out that 48 million is only 3% of the off shore land available. I wish I can find a transcript, most of what I’m posting is just off the top of my head.

There were plenty of facts I’m not sure of from memory but I did remember that the Shale oil deposits were put at 2 trillion and the total oil used in the world since the first oil well was only 1 trillion. The logic is ; we have it let’s use it to buy us time to put all our ingenuity in to alternative energy which indeed will take a long time. Let’s buy that time by drilling now.
There were some good one liners such as “We can’t conserve our way out of this”, That Jay Leno joke about people 10 years ago were complaining that it would take 10 years before we would see progress. He said something like today that doesn’t seem so long. Like I say I wish I had a transcript. It looks to me like there is finally a full court attack on our current do nothing course in the House. Other House bills were mentioned in passing as coming up in the near future. I had alluded to that happening and that it looked like Tim Walberg’s Discharge pettition was the opening volley. I hope that is right. I hope Republican keep the high ground on this. I hope the thoughts expressed by these three and especially by Dan Burton about being willing to sit down with the other side to work out what is the best policy. “help facilitate the best results”. I can already see one area of possible common ground and that would be on the idea the Dems had of putting a time limit on leasing land by the oil companies for a short period of time and losing that lease unless it was used to get oil from it. That sounds as if it would work to let other companies compete for the leases.

The dirty little secret is that for this to happen regulations will have to be cut back and the Dems will have a knee jerk reaction to that. This media barrage put out in guerilla fashion with Newt and his web sites and his constant appearances on FOX and other networks, plus this new barrage from the House through such out of the way places as CSPAN. Eventually the media picks up on it. It start with that then other more mainstream places pick it up like Drudge and other major blog sites, then it starts to dribble into the mainstream news. If the truth is stated simply and consistently and continually in a way not condescending but in a common sense way. The media cannot ignore it. I just checked and there are 647,000 signatures on Newt’s site.

As I get more I will post it. I hope I can get a text. If this heats up I’ll put a site on my side bar for xtra links. I would like to get a better sense of the different fronts this battle will be waged upon. Who the players are. This discussion on CSPAN was great but I wish I could teach them one word I picked up from the British effort and that word is facilitate. I believe it was Mr Westmoreland that near the end alluded to the fact that this plan would help the companies get the oil out, refine it and lower the prices. I look at it as the legislators facilitating the lowering of the gas prices for the people through working with all involved in the debate. The oil companies, the environmentalists , the bureaucracies, they all need a 3rd bipartisan party to sit them down and hammer out a compromise that is good for the people. A bottom up solution.

Westmoreland then listed the three part plan how all the parts put together could lower the price by around $2.00 a gal. The key was that the government wouldn’t be standing in the way but rather helping. Then he listed the Democrat’s plan which involved forcing the companies to drill on the leases they already had, suing OPEC, taxing the oil companies. All three of those did nothing to lower the cost of a gal. of gas.
I wanted to scream the word facilitate, it is such a useful and pretty word. Seems to help describe a conservative people friendly policy. A more bottom up policy, a policy driven by the actual results rather than vague philosophical discourse.
------link to American solutions------
http://www.americansolutions.com/
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Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.

PS. During the discussion Norway was in a list of the top exporters to America of oil. We buy a lot of oil from them. The link below is from a trip Newt and his wife took to Norway. Off shore drilling and producing 1.6 Billion barrels @ year off shore doesn’t seem to bother the ecology of Norway at all. Notice too their commitment to wind and solar. Sounds like too much common sense going on for Americans to handle. lol