The day before the Democratic National Convention Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) went on Meet the Press and told Tom Brokaw:
I’m, I’m, I’m investing in something I believe in. I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels. … These investments in wind, in solar and biofuels and focus on natural gas, these are the real alternatives.
As we pointed out at the time, natural gas is not an alternative to fossil fuels … it is a fossil fuel. And as the “Energy Kids Page” of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) explains, it is a fossil fuel that needs to be drilled for.
One would hope that Pelosi had studied up on the issue since then, but her comments after the House passed a bill codifying the ban on most of the Outer Continental Shelf shows she still does not. Pelosi told The Washington Post: “We’re not trying to give incentives to drill, we’re giving incentives to invest in renewables and natural gas that will take us where we need to go.”
Again, where does Pelosi think natural gas comes from? If the government is “giving incentives” to natural gas, it is giving incentives to drill. That is how we get natural gas.
Worse, the House leadership broke their word to allow a full debate on the issue. Last week House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) promised the new Democratic energy bill would be brought to the floor under normal rules and would be subject to a vote on a Republican alternative.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told The Hill:
A bill gets filed at 9:45 the night before and then it’s announced it’s going to come to the floor the next morning as the first bill up, a bill that no one has read, written in the dark of night that won’t do a damn thing about American energy,” Boehner said. “Enough is enough!
