I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."
Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"
But that's why I don't get asked to testify before Congress. So instead the Big Oil guy oozed as oleaginous as his product before the grand panjandrums of the House Subcommittee on Televised Posturing, and then they went off and passed 324-82 the so-called NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is, in effect, a suit against OPEC, which, if I recall correctly, stands for the Oil Price-Exploiting Club. "No War For Oil!," as the bumper stickers say. But a massive suit for oil – now that's the American way.
"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product ... or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of oil, natural gas or other petroleum product in the United States."
Er, OK. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don't we start by suing Congress? After all, who "limits the production or distribution of oil" right here in the United States by declaring that there'll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge? As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, "We can't drill our way out of this problem."
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Another great Steyn
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I don't understand why the libs are so angry about high energy prices. If you ask them what should be done about global warming they all say we need a carbon tax. The effect will be to make gasoline (and everything that depends on oil) more expensive so that we use less.
The libs should jumping for joy. They should be thanking the oil industry, and the rest of the free market, for doing their job for them. With higher prices we will drive less, and conserve more without a single law being passed. Plus, oil companies will presumably make higher profits, thereby contributing to pension plans, and retirement accounts of the people, and most importantly to the liberals, pay higher income taxes (i.e. a carbon tax by any other name).
But noooo. Even though the free market working has the same effect on the consumption of gasoline as a 100% carbon tax, the liberals are still angry. The only difference I can see is because the libs aren't getting the oppotunity to order us around like they would if this was being done with regulations. That's the only difference!
Instead what we get is a bunch of democrat Senate hacks, tearing down the institutions that power our economy that funds their paychecks. Their criticism? That the oil companies aren't dumping enough fossil fuels into the market. And on top of that, a rediculous court action against a king in another country that doesn't even have a real legal system, demanding that they pump more fossil fuels into the environment.
If this is reality, its a reality not based in reality. Please tell me the American people aren't so stupid as to think that the "progessives" are really making progress.
They're angry because it's not the government getting the cash; it's some Saudi prince somewhere.
If they could raise taxes by a dollar a gallon, they'd be all good with that.
Post a Comment