Liberal reporters are stating that it was a failure for the GOP in the Senate that a bill opposed by a Republican senator from Louisiana failed in the trial balloon vote Wednesday. Got that bit of irony? A bill put forward by Republicans in the Senate to counter the unconstitutional money grab by Senate Democrats - yanking the tax 'credits' of the top five oil and gas companies - was opposed by a Republican senator from an oil producing state. Why did Senator Vitter oppose his party's bill? He said it didn't go far enough.
He is right.
So, it's ok that the bill failed. It was meant to get the Republicans on record by Democrats who wish to use votes in campaign ads in 2012. To Democrats, it is bad to be on record voting in support of the energy producing sector. Unless it is "green energy". Then, it is ok to be in favor of throwing good money after bad in energy production that will not bear fruit for decades to come. There is no common sense in Democratic leadership when it comes to energy. They will blindly support a liberal and illogical ideology to the bitter end. They are complacent as we pay big bucks to fill our gas tanks because they view high gas prices as a way of rationing America's driving habits.
Apparently, it is a-ok with Democrats to stop domestic offshore oil and gas drilling in our waters because in their logic, we'll never have enough anyway. What?
Democrats argued that no amount of domestic drilling would satiate the nation’s thirst for energy.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., accused Republicans of wanting “to begin rushing in to drilling with the same reckless practices that led to the spill” in the Gulf last year.
“Not only does the Republican bill not add any new protocols to ensure that increased drilling will be safe, it revokes some of the additional requirements that were instituted following the BP spill,” Durbin said. “They haven’t learned any lessons from what happened in the Gulf of Mexico.”
The Senate voted 42-57 to launch debate on the legislation — falling 18 votes shy of the 60 needed to advance the bill.
The facts are written in plain language in the final reports produced on the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. It was a build up on bad human decisions and failure of a piece of equipment which had nothing to do with additional layers of bureaucratic red tape and more pencil pushers dictating "new protocols" that are neither useful nor helpful. It has nothing to do with safety on a drilling rig. That's the lesson that should be learned, if Senator Durbin were really serious.
For the record, Democratic Senator from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, also opposed the bill as not strong enough.
Vitter took issue with a provision in the legislation that would require a third-party review of oil companies’ spill response plans.
The legislation “increases the burdens and requirements and hurdles of even the new Obama regulations that have been put in place since the BP disaster,” Vitter said on the floor Tuesday.
In addition, the legislation does not go far enough to expand domestic drilling, Vitter said, noting it does not require dramatic new lease sales in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off parts of the Pacific coast.
“I’m disappointed that the bill is so modest in terms of the increased access,” he said.
Vitter rightly pointed out that both bills - the one targeting oil companies and the one that was a weak response from the GOP - are a waste of precious time.
“There’s going to be a whole bunch of sound and fury in the end signifying nothing,” Vitter said.
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