WASHINGTON -- The Senate approved legislation that would open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and natural-gas exploration, splitting with the House over the scope of new drilling and casting final passage into doubt.
A House-passed energy bill would allow drilling up and down the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, 356 million acres in all, lifting a moratorium that has been in place for a quarter century. Senate Democrats vowed to block any compromise, insisting that the House accept the Senate version.
The Senate bill passed 71-25, with supporters saying it will increase domestic supply and ultimately drive down the price of gas. "In this case, the benefit so outweighs the risks ... that we should have a stampede, not a vote," said Sen. Pete Domenici (R., N.M.), chairman of the energy committee.
Democrats would have us all believe that gas prices are high because of greedy corporate executives and unconscionalbe profit-taking, yet if those executives worked for free and if oil companies eliminated all profits in order to provide it's services to the public for free gas prices would likely not drop so much as even a dime thanks to the exhorbitant taxes and draconian regulatons the oil industry is burdened with. The government collects far more in taxes from the sale of gasoline than oil companies collect in profits, and the oil industry is prevented from expanding production to meet increased demand for oil (which a supply and demand lesson from Economics 101 tells us would reduce the price of gasoline) by enviromental regulations that prevent it from building new refineries exploiting oil resources in places like Alaska and off the costs.
Above is just another example of Democrats blocking the expansion of oil production. They rail against high gas prices and corporate greed, yet refuse to allow the corporations in question the opportunity to take the sort of action that will bring gas prices down. If Democrats were truly interested in seeing gas prices go down, rather than just paying lip service to it for partisan political purposes, they'd compromise with the House Republicans on a bill that would allow for wide-spread expansion of domestic oil production.