Energy -- Pandering To Big Oil

June 19, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster

ENERGY

Pandering To Big Oil

President Bush, "reversing a longstanding position," called yesterday for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling and reaffirmed his call to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Bush's flip-flop followed an even more egregious policy shift by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who pushed for offshore drilling in a speech before oil executives in Houston on Tuesday, though he had campaigned against it as recently as three weeks ago. Following Bush and McCain's lead, a number of conservatives reversed their former opposition to offshore drilling, including Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist (R), Sen. Mel Martinez (R) and Rep. Connie Mack (R). Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has been leading the charge to expand domestic drilling, with his "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" campaign. Yet the election-year gimmick of expanding offshore drilling does nothing to solve America's energy crisis, nor will it have an ameliorating effect on soaring gas prices. Under McCain's assumption of 21 billion barrels of oil in the banned areas -- higher than the Department of Energy's estimation of 18 billion barrels -- there is still only enough to support America's total consumption, at 7.5 billion barrels per year, for three years. The bottom line is that America consumes 25 percent of the world's oil but has just 3 percent of the world's reserves, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pointed out. "We cannot drill our way out of this problem," he said. David Sandalow, a Brookings Institution energy expert, said of offshore drilling, "It's like walking an extra 20 feet a day to lose weight. It's just not enough to make a difference."

ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING: Over two years ago, Bush declared, "America is addicted to oil." But the latest Bush-McCain proposal will do nothing to solve that problem. "Feeding that addiction by tapping another vein just drills us into a deeper hole," said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Bush declared that expanded drilling would "bring enormous benefits to the American people." In his Tuesday speech, McCain explained his flip-flop by saying he wanted to "address the concerns of Americans, who are struggling right now to pay for gasoline." Yet as the New York Times writes today of expanding offshore drilling, "This is worse than a dumb idea. It is cruelly misleading." The Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted that "access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." Even McCain's own top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said offshore drilling would have "no immediate effect" on gas prices. Just yesterday, McCain seemed to reverse his long-standing opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- something Bush continued to push for in his speech -- even as he declared Tuesday that the "next president must be willing to break with the energy policies...of the current Administration." Bush's own Department of Energy estimated that drilling in the Arctic refuge would cut oil prices by only about 75 cents a barrel. What's more, even if the refuge were opened this year, its extracted oil would not reach the market for 10 years.

FALSE ARGUMENTS: Bush blamed "Democrats on Capitol Hill" who he said "have rejected virtually every proposal" to increase oil production, adding "now Americans are paying the price at the pump for this obstruction." Congress is not blocking domestic drilling. In fact, the number of drilling permits both on- and off-shore has exploded from 3,802 five years ago to 7,561 in 2007. Congress and the Bush administration have opened up so much land to drilling that oil companies can't keep up: In the last four years, the government has issued 28,776 permits to drill on public land, yet only 18,954 wells were actually drilled. Congressional obstruction is just one of the false arguments conservatives are peddling. Another is the idea that we can drill and still "ensure that our environment is protected." McCain declared drilling is so "safe" that "not even Hurricane Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston." This is patently false. Hurricane Katrina caused 44 oil spills, resulting in more than seven million gallons of oil spilled, according to the Coast Guard., nearing the nine million gallons spilled in the 1989 Exxon-Valdez disaster.

BOON FOR BIG OIL: "The only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power -- Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- exit the political stage," the New York Times writes today. It is not surprising that oil executives praised the idea when McCain presented it to them on Tuesday. Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. CEO Jim Hackett called McCain's drilling plan "a positive development for American consumers," adding, "We need to get serious about producing our own resources for the benefit of Americans." Larry Nichols, CEO of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy, called McCain's proposals a "truly honest assessment of what our energy policies have been and need to be." Big Oil has also vigorously backed McCain's campaign. McCain ranks second in the Senate for donations from the energy industry and has raised over $700,000 from oil and gas this election season alone.

ETHICS -- JUSTICE DEPARTMENT GRANTS BEING INVESTIGATED FOR FAVORITISM: The Justice Department (DOJ) Inspector General and the House Oversight Committee are investigating millions of dollars of DOJ Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) grant money for evidence of favoritism, the Washington Post reports. Last year, Congress approved more than $150 million in 2007 in grant funds for the DOJ to distribute freely. But "according to documents and three sources familiar with events," DOJ officials "disregarded independent reviews and steered awards to favored groups." The OJJDP passed over programs that were ranked high on a DOJ merit scale -- including the National Child Protection Training Center and the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network -- to instead reward politically-favored groups, such as thepro-abstienence Best Friends program, even though it ranked 53rd on a list of 104 applicants. The program's founder and president is Elayne Bennett, the wife of former Republican administration official and conservative pundit Bill Bennett. Best Friends, which was awarded double the money they had originally requested, had previously held "pricey society fundraisers" that OJJDP administrator J. Robert Flores and his top aides often attend. Flores is set to testify today before the House Oversight Committee.

CONGRESS -- FEITH CHICKENS OUT OF CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON TORTURE, REFUSES TO APPEAR WITH WILKERSON: Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith withdrew from a scheduled appearance before a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on torture yesterday because he did not want to to appear with Colin Powell's former chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was also testifying. Feith was to speak about his role in helping the Bush administration evade the Geneva conventions, but informed the committee through his counsel that he "would not appear today because he is not willing to appear alongside one of our other witnesses," said Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). "Mr. Feith's unwillingness to attend voluntarily and provide the truth about this government's actions shows a fundamental disrespect for Congress and the American people," Nadler said. Wilkerson, who left the Bush administration in protest over Bush policies, has criticized Feith's competence, saying "seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Seated next to Feith's empty chair, Wilkerson testified that Vice President Cheney probably knew that the U.S. was using torture at GuantanamoBay and in Iraq. "At what level did American leadership fail?" Wilkerson asked. "I believe it failed at the highest levels of the Pentagon, in the Vice President's Office and perhaps even in the Oval Office."

TORTURE -- MEDICAL EXAMS BACK UP CLAIMS OF DETAINEE ABUSE UNDER U.S. CUSTODY: In an interview with the New York Times, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, military lawyer for a Guantanamo detainee and Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, said "the Bush administration's war crimes system 'is designed to get criminal convictions' with 'no real evidence.'" Military prosecutors "launder evidence derived from torture," Kuebler said, adding, "You put the whole package together and it stinks." At the same time, a report released yesterday by the Physicians for Human Rights gives credibility to Kuebler's claim of detainee abuse. "The first extensive medical examinations of former detainees in U.S. military jails offer corroboration for prisoners' claims of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of their American captors," the report found. "The assessments of 11 men formerly held in U.S. detention camps overseas revealed scars and other injuries consistent with their accounts of beatings, electric shocks, shackling and, in at least one case, sodomy." Physicians for Human Rights used "teams of medical specialists" to conduct the "physical and psychological tests, including exams intended to assess if the subjects were lying." In a statement, ret. Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, "who led the Army's first official investigation on Abu Ghraib, said the new evidence suggested a 'systematic regime of torture' inside U.S.-run detention camps."

In an interview with the New York Times, Lt. Cmdr. William C. Kuebler, the military lawyer for Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, said "the Bush administration's war crimes system 'is designed to get criminal convictions' with 'no real evidence' and that military prosecutors "launder evidence derived from torture." "You put the whole package together and it stinks," Kuebler said.

Under a wiretapping bill set to be approved by the House, U.S. phone companies would receive immunity and "be shielded from potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits." As a "compromise," the bill would also "allow a federal district court to dismiss a suit if the company was provided written assurances that Bush authorized their participation in the spy program and that it was legal."

The New York Times reports that there is currently a "shortage of ships used for deep-water offshore drilling," meaning that any attempts to lift the offshore drilling ban would have little near-term effect. The "world's existing drill-ships are booked solid for the next five years," and shipbuilders have raised prices since last year "by as much as $100 million a vessel to about half a billion dollars."

"Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who negotiated the federal-state compromise to keep drilling away from Florida shores, said in an email to the Miami Herald" that he now supports drilling off Florida with restrictions.

At a gay-rights panel discussion at the Center for American Progress Action Fund last week, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) linked the issues of polygamy and same-sex marriage. He has since apologized. "My remarks referenced a point in time when a few of my ancestors were persecuted for not adhering to that belief," Smith said. "It was an unfortunate reference, and I apologize for making it."

"Six years and $16.5 billion later, the U.S. still lacks a solid plan to create a self-sustaining security force in Afghanistan," according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.

In an increasingly gloomy assessment of the U.S. economy, chief executives polled by Business Roundtable "expect employment at their companies to decline in coming months and rising costs to pinch their profits." The group “whose outlook is usually relatively upbeat, has become pessimistic amid mounting energy prices and housing-market worries."

And finally: Last week, President Bush made headlines while in Germany for praising the country's asparagus after a dinner with Chancellor Angela Merkel. "The German asparagus are fabulous," Bush said. In response, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) have had 10 pounds of Washington state asparagus delivered to the White House. "Mr. President, if you liked the German variety, we guarantee you will love the Washington state variety," Murray and Hastings wrote in their letter. Murray added that it is the "best in the world."

House leaders in both parties struck a deal on a long-overdue war supplemental bill that includes billions for emergency flood relief, an extension of unemployment benefits and expanded GI Bill college benefits for veterans.

CALIFORNIA: California Supreme Court set to "decide another potentially landmark civil rights case: whether doctors can refuse to treat certain patients for religious reasons."

ARIZONA: Lawmakers passed another bill creating penalties for doctors who perform late-term abortions, which is likely to be vetoed by the governor.

MAINE: "Maine's governor and members of the state's congressional delegation Wednesday unanimously opposed President Bush's plan to allow expanded offshore oil drilling."

THINK PROGRESS: Ex-State Dept. official: Hundreds of detainees died in U.S. custody, at least 25 murdered.

WONK ROOM: Public health plans should compete with private policies.

MEDIA MATTERS: CNN's Glenn Beck inflated estimated Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil production by 7,000 percent.

INFORMED COMMENT: Iraqi re-Baathification law touted by conservatives as a success has yet to be implemented.

"I don't think that administration officials purposely overstated [the threat of Iraq]. I do think there were errors made in the presentation."
-- Iraq war architect Doug Feith, 6/18/08

VERSUS

"A long-delayed Senate report...has concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies."
-- New York Times, 6/5/08, on a Senate Intelligence Committee report

Think Progress

Pandering To Big Oil

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