Pelosi Blocks Gas Price Relief

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that she would block any vote to allow offshore drilling. This remarkable stance comes in the face of the latest poll that says 73 percent of Americans favor offshore drilling, while only 27 percent oppose it. Nancy Pelosi again displays her contempt for her employer, the American people. Her arrogance and wrong-headed philosophy have led Congress to an approval rating of a staggering 14 percent, the lowest ever.

The arguments she advances in defense of her position are, at best, silly, and at worst, devious. She says she will not allow additional reserves to be drilled because oil companies already hold leases on 68 million acres of federal land that are not being drilled. She ignores the testimony of oil company representatives who tell her that had they found oil under these lands, they would be pumping it. The oil companies need to drill where the oil is.

There is plenty of oil to drill. Known reserves offshore, in Alaska, the Bakken fields of North Dakota and Montana, and elsewhere, can meet the energy demand for at least 100 years. But Pelosi and her colleagues don't want this oil produced. Pelosi says that it will take 10 years for this new oil supply to reach the pump, and then, it would reduce the price by only two-cents per gallon. This price projection is pure fiction.

As an alternative, she says the president should release 70 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves, which would provide immediate price relief. Is this silly, stupid, or just more of Pelosi's political doublespeak? This alternative would supply less than four days of the U.S. demand, which would not likely even be noticed at the pump. It would do nothing to solve the underlying problem of too little supply. ...