Republicans Offer $100 Rebate Checks/Democrats, a 60 Day Suspension of Gas Taxes

Throw in oil massage w/release and I'll change my party affiliation.

 

Nice bandaid political whores, your're doing a hell of a job.

 

Tiny American flags for everyone before election month! And I can't wait to spend my $100 at wal-mart!

 

Because a $100 one time hit and/or 18 cent reduction in gas is going to make one big whoop of a difference????

And for that lets drill away in a wildlife refuge. Yippee! Lets forget an impartial review of drilling....you want's your tax break -- gotta let us drill.

Thankfully that $3.00 gas is gone! Long life $2.82 gas. And if the price must go up....let it go up by $0.18 less that it otherwise would have.

Spark up the SUV and crank on the AC. Salvation is here.

Man I hate politics.

 

WOW! why not just give the money directly to the energy company?
I guess that would be illegal and this is just as good

Rocket River

 

Free at last! - Lewis Black

 

Seriously....raising demand for oil isn't the solution.

shortsighted idiots...

 

Kevin Drum...

A hundred dollar rebate! It's bad economics, bad policy, bad optics, and the palpable stink of election-year desperation all rolled into one fetid package.

 

hey, do i get a check? i don't own a car, but do take the occasional taxi...

seriously, why can't we just vote every last member of congress out? i would gladly sacrifice republican party control of both houses if we could ensure 100% turnover.

 

Along with the moratorium on gas tax the Dems are also proposing repealing the 14 billion dollars in tax right offs to the oil industry. I think that's a good start.

The $100 rebate sounds like vote buying to me.

 

I'll be damned! I agree with basso!

 

Both of those sound bad. I don't want a justice dept investigation, I want a full on Senate inquiry into whether or not we are getting gouged at the pump. Put those jowel sporting oil company big wigs on tv infront of the whole country trying to defend what they are doing.

 

I agree. I would love to vote all the political whores out of Washington. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are morally corrupt.

 

Via Atrios, language from the Frist proposed gas gouging bill...

It is unlawful for a [sic] any person to increase the price at which that person sells, or offers to sell, gasoline or petroleum distillates to the public (for purposes other than resale) in, or for use in, an area covered by an emergency proclamation by an unconscionable amount while the proclamation is in effect.

So, oil companies are exempt from the bill, which would only apply to corner gas stations. Yep, we can count on the current Senate to get to the bottom of this!

 

omg, with this and the complaint on the music copyright thread, I think we've found a common ground!

 

It's also pretty weaseyl to try and sneak the ANWAR amendment into the bill.

 

of course the senate and other politicians aren't going to do anything about the gas prices. they ALL get large contributions from oil companies and owe them favors.....it's a big cycle.

i agree, we need 100% turnover in washington. the old way isn't working anymore, lobbyists and party campaign finance have ruined the american political system. no one gives a damn that the other 99% of the country has to worry about paying $3 a gallon for freaking gasoline. it's only about that 1% who give them the money they need to run smear campaigns against the opposition.

 

Teddy breaks like the wind...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/27/kennedy_faces_fight_on_cape_wind/

--
Kennedy faces fight on Cape Wind
Key lawmakers oppose his bid to block project

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | April 27, 2006

WASHINGTON -- As record oil prices turn attention to the need for renewable fuels, momentum is building in Congress to buck Senator Edward M. Kennedy's bid to block the proposed Cape Cod wind energy project, potentially reviving efforts to construct the sprawling windmill farm in Nantucket Sound.

The chairman and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said yesterday that when the bill Kennedy backs that would effectively halt the wind farm comes up for a vote in the Senate, they will object on procedural grounds. They say they'll argue that a renewable energy project shouldn't be lumped in with a bill governing the Coast Guard.

Meanwhile, a group of rank-and-file House members, worried about the political ramifications of rejecting alternative energy sources while motorists pay $3 a gallon at the gas station, have persuaded House leaders to sidetrack the entire bill for at least several weeks, even though it was slated for action this week. The delay could give supporters of the wind farm time to make their case to members of Congress.

''Are we going to be for developing alternative energy or not?" said Representative Charles Bass, a New Hampshire Republican who helped persuade House leaders to table the bill until at least mid-May. ''The longer you delay it, the longer there is for people to examine the issue, and to determine what's going on here."

The efforts to move the wind farm forward occur amid growing attention to Kennedy's role in the secret, behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stop it. Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, the senator who inserted the wind-farm provision into the Coast Guard bill, has acknowledged discussing the matter privately with the Massachusetts Democrat.

Environmental groups have launched an aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon Kennedy and back a promising source of renewable energy. If the wind farm becomes a reality, advocates say, it could provide three-fourths of the Cape and Islands' energy needs and could set an example for the nation.

The maneuver to stop the wind farm ''is clearly a backroom deal, and they're going to get called publicly on it," said John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA. ''The Democrats are going to kill the first big offshore wind farm in the United States because of their relationship with Ted Kennedy."

The 130-turbine, 24-square-mile cluster of windmills would be about 8 miles from Kennedy's home in Hyannis Port, and he has long opposed it. The Coast Guard bill would give Governor Mitt Romney, another wind farm opponent, the power to veto it, even if the project clears all other hurdles.

Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn't like the wind farm because it would be near his Cape home, and said the project probably wouldn't be visible from the Kennedy compound. He said he's against the project because it would create a range of environmental and navigational problems and would hurt tourism, one of the area's key industries.

The Cape Wind developers, he said, want to erect a sprawling, for-profit field of giant windmills on public, state-owned territory. Kennedy noted that the project was the beneficiary of more lenient regulations included in last year's energy bill, which could have put it on a faster track to construction; therefore, a special deal was warranted to stop it.

Ultimately, Kennedy said, Massachusetts and its governor should get to decide yes or no on the site for the farm, Kennedy said.

''We had an opportunity to right a wrong," he said of the provision in the Coast Guard bill. ''The people who ought to be irate ought to be the citizens of Massachusetts. I don't shrink from my advocacy for them. I welcome it. I'm going to continue to make sure that . . . a wealthy developer is not going to ride roughshod over the state's interests."

Kennedy said the effort to block the wind farm started in the House, where Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, another Alaska Republican, originally inserted it in the House version of the Coast Guard bill. Young and Stevens maintain that states should have a say in energy projects off their coastlines.

''I just believe it's a state's right," Stevens said yesterday. ''If that were in Puget Sound, don't you think people in Washington would want to say something about it? If it's off our coast, we'd want to know."

Stevens said he ''conferred" with Kennedy about adding a provision to the bill that would allow the state to veto the Cape Cod project. He said Kennedy agreed with that idea, an account that Kennedy confirmed.

But the project's supporters don't like the manner in which the provision was included in the bill, an argument that appears to be catching on with some lawmakers. The final language was hashed out in secret by a small handful of lawmakers -- a group that included Young and Stevens.

''They've lost in the court of public opinion, so they're taking this to the back room because it's the only way they can get it done," said Sue Reid, a staff attorney for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, which backs the wind farm. ''There's growing outrage against this provision," said Reid, who was in Washington yesterday to lobby Congress.

Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate energy committee, said it's important to encourage development of renewable energy sources like wind power.

Bingaman and Chairman Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, will try to round up enough senators to strip the provision from the Coast Guard bill. That would send the bill back to the conference committee -- with the Senate on record against interference with the Cape Wind project.

The Kennedy-backed provision ''would short-circuit the process and kill the project, which I think would be a mistake," Bingaman said.

''If there are problems with the project, they ought to come out and be discussed. But they shouldn't be dealt with this way."

Bass said the Cape Wind project has been treated differently in Congress because powerful lawmakers and special interest lobbyists vacation on Cape Cod and treasure the ocean views.

''It's odd that the people who are against it are the people who have [scenic] views," Bass said. ''I'm sorry about that, but the project ought to rise or fall on its merits."

Kennedy dismissed such talk as ''their response to any kind of raising of questions" about the project's problems. ''It's just an easy response to an argument that has merit."

 

House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Ill., center, gets out of a Hydrogen Alternative Fueled automobile, left, as he prepares to board his SUV, which uses gasoline, after holding a new conference at a local gas station in Washington, Thursday, April 27, 2006 to discuss the recent rise in gas prices. Hastert and other members of Congress drove off in the Hydrogen-Fueled cars only to switch to their official cars to drive back the few block back to the U.S. Capitol.