Drill Now, Drill Here another Roy Blunt Pork Barrel for lobbyist

Written by: David Harper on Aug 11, 2008 4:23 PM EDT

“Drill Now; Drill Here” is Pork

By Richard Monroe, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Representative in CD7

            Roy Blunt and President Bush have been sounding off about the need to lease our natural  resources to oil companies.   

Far from a patriotic plan to achieve energy independence for America, the Blunt/Bush proposal would, in fact, be a huge pork barrel present to oil companies such as ExxonMobil  and Chevron.  The day after leases are granted not one additional drop of petroleum will be available, but there would certainly be a huge boon to the oil companies. 

            Even the White House’s own Energy Information Administration says the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and ANWR would not yield noticeable amounts of oil until the 2020s, and would have only an insignificant impact on prices at full production thereafter.  Since granting leases for drilling in ANWR or on the Outer Continental Shelf will have no immediate impact on fuel supplies or on fuel prices, an objective observer would necessarily be justified in wondering why Blunt, Bush and the Republican host have undertaken their “Drill here; Drill now” campaign.  It is even odder that Blunt and Bush insist on leasing ANWR and the OCS, when, as John McCann had said last month, that existing rigs and fields hold “abundant resources in the view of people in the business that could be exploited within a period of months.”  It may be that Blunt and Bush are just crazy, or it may be that Blunt and Bush are arguing an insincere position for political advantage.  Either explanation is plausible, but neither gets to the pork barrel favoritism that is demonstrably the true motivation.   

Oil companies carry as assets on their balance sheets oil leases and “proven reserves.”  “Proven reserves”,   to oversimplify, are akin to warehoused goods.  The immediate effect of more oil leases and more “proven reserves” is to inflate the balance sheet of energy companies.  Overnight, the stock value of ExxonMobil, Chevron, Conoco Phillips and other firms would skyrocket when the accountants and comptrollers “book” these reserves.  Of course, the oil leases and “proven reserves” that are the boon to ExxonMobil’s corporate book value are from a legislative grant of your property, public lands in Alaska or the United States’ Outer Continental Shelf. 

            So why would Roy Blunt gush so about the need for immediately granting the oil leases? 

            The answer is that these oil leases would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, pork barrel pay offs to Blunt’s financial supporters that the K-Street Project Wrecking Crew has ever proposed.  It makes “The Bridge to Nowhere” look like peanuts.  It makes the corn to Ethanol scam look like chicken feed.  Roy Blunt’s contributors include many from the energy sector to include PACs and individuals associated with Haliburton, Marathon Oil, and Chevron, as examples.  Look at www.opensecrets.org, for details.  What better way for Blunt to reward the executives and PACs of oil companies than to grant your property rights to them?  In the 19^th Century, Congressmen took payoffs for grants of public land to railroad corporations.  The principle is the same in the 21^st Century.  The bottom line is that “Drill here, Drill now” is Pork, not Policy.  Unless you benefit from energy sector stock price appreciation, “Drill here; Drill now” will not drop a penny off your gas price, or your fertilizer price or heating bill.   It is high time to reject the politics of corruption that “Drill here; Drill now” represents and that Roy Blunt practices.  You need a Congressman who will not accept lobbyist or industrial PAC funds.  You need and deserve a Congressman who will not push a program that would reward his campaign contributors billions at the expense of the voting public.  

            We need a crash program for development of alternative, clean and renewable energy.  We need emphasis on efficiency and conservation.  We need not to use food as fuel.  Above all, we do not need to grant a windfall to inflate the asset sheets of the most profitable corporations in the history of mankind.  

            Reject corruption; restore integrity in government.  Demand policy based on facts.

We need 5,000 people to invest $30 into our media blitz to stop the GOP Whip Roy Blunt who gave us the ammunition of "a vote for McCain is a vote for 4 more years of the Bush policies"

http://monroeforcongress.com/donate.htm

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Location: MO