Redstate

By PhxG Posted in Congress — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Dear Senator Menendez,

Recently, I have come across a posting you made at huffingtonpost.com, Bush and McCain: Drilling us into a Deeper Hole and after reading said posting I have substantial problem with your position. See Senator, you made this very specific statement about lowering the cost of gas in the US, but fail to actually provide any solutions, just rhetoric:

They [the Republican drill now plan] may sell it as immediate relief at the pump, but what they're talking about is really a decade or more down the road and would amount to maybe a few pennies in savings, according to the Energy Information Administration. Who would think that's worth the wait? Or the economic risk?

Senator, how can we accept your statement today as anything other then partisan hooey because you do not seem able to discern right from wrong in advancing prosperity for every American, not just your environmentalist groups. It is this context that I question not only your intelligence in making the right decisions in the Senate but your very support of America itself. Increasing fuel costs is a direct result of limited supplies. Time and time, and time again no price gouging has been found yet it is fact that the demand from China and India has increased substantially. As with increased demand come increased price; it does not take Adam Smith to figure this out.

You go on to say:

Families are pinching every penny so they can drive their kids to school or get themselves to work. With high food prices, some have to choose between putting a gallon of gas in their cars and putting a gallon of milk in their refrigerators…While we look at the critical short-term economic issues related to gas and food prices that matter a great deal to American families

And yet this is a still a direct result of supply and demand. Senator, as we continue to use food products for fuel, the price of that commodity has increased across the board resulting in higher production costs for every product that uses corn, not just ethanol. What are you doing to reduce those costs Senator? Perhaps you have written legislation that rescinds the 18.4 cents per gallon of federal fuel tax? I know, you have specifically addressed the problem of subsidies in the 2008 Farm Bill? Lets review in brief your legislation activities:

S.RES.299 : A resolution recognizing the religious and historical significance of the festival of Diwali.

S.2525 : A bill to prevent health care facility-acquired infections.

S.2679 : A bill to provide assistance for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland.

S.2107 : A bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 570 Broadway in Bayonne, New Jersey, as the "Dennis P. Collins Post Office Building".

Not a single piece of legislation that addresses the high cost of oil, except one.

S.391 : A bill to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently prohibit the conduct of offshore drilling on the outer Continental Shelf in the Mid-Atlantic and North Atlantic planning areas.

It seems that your legislative actions are designed to restrict oil supplies available thus pushing the oil and subsequent price at the pump even higher; which of course will push the cost of bread, milk and cheese even higher.

So here we are Senator, you spout platitudes and environmentalist rhetoric but when it comes time to propose anything of substance you fail to deliver.

Even more importantly, you support S. 309 which “would cap greenhouse gas emissions on an economy-wide basis by 80 percent in the year 2050”. You sir do not want to take action to increase oil production because it would have no immediate impact, yet you support an unproven and untested action for reducing the fallacy of greenhouse gasses over a period that is neither immediate nor in our lifetime. How can you so positively say that we should put the America on a path that will surely devastate our competitiveness in the world economy in what is literally a generational time line yet a 5-year plan to decrease foreign oil dependence, something you want, is not immediate enough?

There was a time in the not too distant past where a Democrat or Republican was a distinction of political ideals. But today we see your Democrat stance is positively not pro-America. It is time that you truly do work for your citizens of New Jersey by accepting that the government does not and can not resolve the our dependence on foreign oil through the clichés of the environmentalist movement.

Senator Menendez, an alternative to oil does not exist today. You say you want to reduce the dependence on foreign oil then support Senator McCain and Former Speaker Gingrich and DRILL NOW.