Political Skullduggery

The GOP had better convince their buddies in Big Oil to go easy on the profits (yeah, right) during the run-up to the Fall mid-term elections or else risk killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

The Democrats are planning on making the cost of fuel the big issue (not the Iraq quagmire) in the Fall.

Seeking to gain advantage on a potent election-year issue, Democrats are promoting ambitious ideas to lower gasoline prices, targeting key voting blocs such as farmers and autoworkers.

Party leaders are requesting that all House and Senate Democrats stage events back home over the Memorial Day recess to signal the start of the summer driving season. The lawmakers will pitch new Democratic proposals to reduce foreign oil imports and expand domestic alternative-energy supplies...

Democrats hope energy will help in Senate races in the biofuel-producing states of Missouri and Montana, as well as in House races across the agricultural Midwest and in commuter districts on both coasts...

Polls show mounting voter concern about high energy costs and the dent they are making in family budgets. A Pew Research Center survey this month showed that respondents ranked high gasoline prices second only to the Iraq war as the most important issue facing the country.

However, the chickenshit Democratic leadership is afraid to focus on the war for fear that the GOP will brand them cowards. Textbook pot calling the kettle black territory.

House and Senate Democrats are promoting separate energy packages. The differences reflect the challenge of reconciling the many regional interests and biases that influence energy debates in Congress.

The House plan focuses almost exclusively on crop-derived biofuels. "From corn in the Midwest, to soybeans in North Carolina, to sugar beets in Minnesota, we grow the crops that can be converted into the biofuels that power our cars," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), when House Democrats announced the plan May 11.

Although narrowly focused, the House plan has a specific audience in mind: conservative rural voters, whom Democrats believe are particularly disgruntled with Republican leadership and for whom high gas prices are a particular burden...

At 352 pages, the Senate package includes benefits for almost every faction of the energy industry. It calls for the expanded use of flexible fuel vehicles, which can run on higher blends of biofuels, and would help local governments and individual gas stations install more biofuel pumps. Oil companies would be required to install the pumps at the gas stations that they own.

Senate Democrats would establish a nationwide renewable energy standard, mandating that 10 percent of electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. To reach that goal, they would subsidize the development of alternative energy technologies, such as wind, solar power and liquefied coal.

Ten percent? By 2020?

Sounds like a whole bunch of nothing.