I heard on the radio this morning that oil executives are once more being called into the Senate to testify. That's perhaps more obscene than the Farm Bill, if it's possible, because at this point it's the Senate of the United States simply using its power and authority to bully individual US citizens.
I can't help but suspect that there are only 2 reasons for doing this yet again. Reason 1: A parade of oil executives distracts people from the fact that while stopping 77,000 barrels per day of oil from going to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a nice symbolic move, it pales in comparison to the 1 million barrels per day that we could be getting from ANWR, and that a de facto ban on new exploration contributes to the plateau of the oil supply which is the actual cause of rising prices. Reason 2: They are hoping to catch some executive perjuring himself in a misstatement, so they can throw the book at him. Just like the embarassing baseball steroid investigations, they just want people punished - for their statements about whats going on if they can't manage to find anything substantial to punish.
Seriously - I didn't mind when the Republicans lost control of the Senate in 2006. But surely this is simply farce. Evidently, we elect 100 people from around the country to wag their fingers at people. They'd better be careful though - I don't want to have to pay them disability for the case of carpal tunnel syndrome they are simply begging for.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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3 comments:
Interesting how this oil price demagoguery seems to happen in even-numbered years...
The count I heard on the radio day: this is the 45th time in the last 5 years they have been called to testify about oil prices.
That's an average of 9 times a year for the past 5 years. Even allowing the House and Senate as seperate trips, that's 4.5 trips to each house of congress per year, or once every 3 months.
Are you surprised? Congresspeople have to know that nothing's going to come out of these hearings. They know that the oil execs aren't price-gouging. Most of our elected officials understand supply and demand. Problem is, most voters don't. They expect Congress to lower their gas prices, as if they had that authority. These hearings allow members of Congress to score political points by saying "I stood up to the oil companies." Nothing more.
If people quit expecting Congress to lower their gas prices and started conserving more, this crap wouldn't happen. Congress only does it because people demand it.
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