House GOP CAVE-men

… and women? It appears that the House GOP has caved on a House bill that included a plan to open up ANWR for oil drilling thanks to objections from …. other Republicans. Via AP:

WASHINGTON – House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.

[…]

Still, the Senate has included ANWR drilling in its budget bill and GOP leaders will push hard for any final House-Senate budget bill to include it.

If the House bill passes in a vote set for Thursday, the two chambers would appoint negotiators to work out differences between the bills. Senate Republicans could insist the ANWR drilling proposal be reinserted into the House bill, forcing a new vote by the full House.

The House Rules Committee formalized the change late Wednesday by issuing the terms of the debate when the House takes up the budget package on Thursday.

The decision to drop the ANWR drilling language came after GOP moderates said they would oppose the budget if it was kept in the bill. The offshore drilling provision was also viewed as too contentious and a threat to the bill, especially in the Senate.

*sigh* I don’t have hope for this bill, even after the revote. It’s bad enough when a long sought-after Republican initiative gets watered down or dropped due to ‘concerns’ from Democratic congresspeople. But when the threat of non-passage comes from your own side of the fence?

I’m with my buddy Cal on this one, who included the following in his letter to the GOP ‘leadership’:

In politics, being a “moderate” is just another word for a leader without conviction. I expect more from the GOP.

Indeed so, as it relates to the moderates in this Congress.

I urge you to write your House representative (and include a copy to the ‘leaders’ in the House as well) and let him/her know how you feel about this latest GOP cave.

Michelle Malkin has posted conservative reactions to this GOP cave here and here.

Thanks (not) to the “Republican Main Street Partnership” for this.

More commentary at Right Wing News, The Conservative Outpost, Brian at Iowa Voice, Jason at Generation Why?, Bryan Preston,

19 Responses to "House GOP CAVE-men"

California Conservative says:

November 10, 2005 at 11:52 am

“Cave-men”… *chuckles*
Now that’s funny.

As Jean-Francois Kerry would be quick to point out: That’s a double entendre.

Being a Republican, I believe in old-fashioned, common-sense, traditional values. But, darnit, despite how bad things seem today, we don’t have to go back that far in time to find ’em…
Conservativity says:

November 10, 2005 at 12:24 pm

An Open Letter to the Speaker of the House

You and every other congressperson who did not fight for this issue to the very end has left every single person who voted you into power high and dry. You have won a majority, sir, yet you are allowing the losers of the last five congressional electi…
Lorica says:

November 10, 2005 at 1:10 pm

Why do they want to protect a barren wasteland?? What is there to protect?? Sadly GW really needs to think about backing moderates for office.
Baklava says:

November 10, 2005 at 1:16 pm

As I’ve said all along… the Republicans are to the left of center (despite the vitriol and hate speech of the left accusing them of being to the extreme right).

There is not one issue the right has won on in the last 4 years.

I don’t even consider the slight cut in tax rates (not fully implemented for the rich in the first set of years) to be a win for the right.

I don’t even consider the way the war on terror has been waged (with a kid gloves approach – despite the claims of the left) to be a win. Due to our insistence on trying to cater to the left and not have an overresponse we have too many service men dying. In my administration it would’ve been a lot more heavy handed and there would be no tolerance for a sniper coming from a building. It would’ve been 5,000 lb bombed within seconds. Active bombers would’ve been in the air in the first month. Any place an enemy was would’ve been bomb dropped or quarantined (if it was a hospital or school) in order to not let the person with bomb or explosive residue on their skin out of the perimeter.

I shudder to think how crazy the left really would’ve been in my centrist/conservative administration.
Severe Writer's Block says:

November 10, 2005 at 1:57 pm

Republicans have no testicular fortitude

Republicans just nixed the ANWAR development. Seems they’ve lost the stomach for a fight. A damn shame.
Baklava says:

November 10, 2005 at 2:07 pm

I know what might be an enlightening discussion.

If liberals out there can tell us conservatives what they think we won (issue wise) in the last 4 years.

We could tell them nope on every issue (unless they do actually think of something legitimate and we could tell them yes).
Donkey Stomp says:

November 10, 2005 at 3:34 pm

Republicans Cave . . . Again!

While the Senate tries to punish oil companies for making a profit, the House drops a bill that would allow for more drilling. If our politicians really want to blame someone for high gas prices, they should look inward.
Kevin says:

November 10, 2005 at 3:36 pm

I find myself asking this question way to often: “If Republicans won’t provide us with things like controlled borders, smaller government, or even effective use of our natural resources (ie ANWAR), then why do we want Republicans in power?”

I know if Democrats were in control, it would be worse. But how much worse? It seems to me that everything would stay the same, except we’d pay more taxes, and some additional liberal activist judges. Everything else has pretty much gone the way the Democrats want it.

Baklava is right, the sum of the “Republicans in power” = “kinda liberal”.
steve says:

November 10, 2005 at 3:53 pm

“We the people” won one from big oil, finally. Peace
Kevin says:

November 10, 2005 at 6:25 pm

Big oil is unquestionably doing better the way things are Steve (best EVER, in fact), so I don’t think I get your point. Was your statement just trolling, or was there a point that I missed?

This is really bad. Do you remember how the Miers nomination almost fractured the conservative movement, and Alito repaired it? Well, it looks like many of us were just barely moved back under the tent, and this spineless move just made us leave again. Have you seen this? Michelle Malkin displays emails sent to Representatives today. I can’t disagree with any of them.

It appears that a Republican majority does not mean a conservative majority. Well, I’m a conservative. I used to think that meant I was a Republican. I’m rethinking that now.
Infinitely Prolonged » Blog Archive » Republican Mushiness says:

November 10, 2005 at 6:27 pm

[…] Sister Toldjah urges us to write our congress-critters and rounds up some more blogger reactions. […]
Baklava says:

November 10, 2005 at 6:29 pm

Less supply and more demand Steve.

“Big” Steve, do you drive cars?

Would you rather the price (as “big” steve the consumer) pay more or less for the product to put in your car?

If “big” government limits the ability for companies to increase supply is the consumer the winner?

Or, are you “big” steve only a winner in the sense that you feel better that you didn’t allow “big” oil to increase their supply of product.
steve says:

November 10, 2005 at 7:36 pm

I’d like to see $5.00 a gallon gas. That might force the American public to stop using oil. Instead of continuing to find more oil, we should be finding ways to shift our economy away from hydro-carbons. That will reduce international tension(supply and demand), reduce greenhouse gases and bring Peace. Peace
Baklava says:

November 10, 2005 at 9:00 pm

Steve wrote, “I’d like to see $5.00 a gallon gas”. Thanks for your honesty. 😯

Steve wrote, “That might force the American public to stop using oil“. It’d do more than that to the American public. Do you know what else?

Steve wrote, “we should be finding ways to shift our economy away from hydro-carbons” Do you know what 99.999% of the emissions are out of a properly running car? Carbon Dioxide (which is what the plant breathe) Hydrocarbons are a pollutant that basically is emitted mostly (90%) by cars that aren’t running properly. While I understand that you are trying to say “shift our economy away from fossil fuels ” the point there is that that is what runs the economy. Everything is moved, heated, provided electricity for, built, manufactured, etc due to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Due to environmentalists, we can’t shift to nuclear or aany more hydroelectric plants. Those are inexpensive alternatives to oil and coal. Making everything run on solar or wind would cost so much that everything would cost more than 5 times as much. While your utopian values are to be applauded, I’m telling you that your method of attacking those with realism is not to be applauded but given a royal thumbs down. Your views (without a sense of realism) are extreme and represent the Ted Kazinsky types if you were to act on your verbal assaults.

You end your comments with peace but verbally attack others who don’t hold your non-realism views
Brian says:

November 12, 2005 at 1:41 am

Drilling for oil in ANWR will do practically nothing to help meet our energy needs. If the drilling for oil in ANWR bill were approved, we would not see any oil from the region for 8-10 years. Once we started producing oil from ANWR, it would have very little impact on the price. There is a world oil market of over 75 million barrels a day. Adding another 900,000 barrels to this would have little effect. The Dept. of Energy estimated that drilling for oil in ANWR would lower oil price by about 50 cents a barrel which would be a little over a penny for each gallon.
Brian says:

November 12, 2005 at 3:54 am

Baklava said, “Everything is moved, heated, provided electricity for, built, manufactured, etc due to fossil fuels like coal and oil.”

That’s not true. In addition to running on fossil fuels, automobiles can also run on ethanol, which comes from plants such as sugarcane. Today in Brazil, 40% of all of the fuel used by automobiles is ethanol. Our country would benefit a lot more by moving towards alternative fuels such as ethanol, as Brazil has done, than by drilling for oil in ANWR which would make very little difference for most Americans.
yblitz says:

November 12, 2005 at 8:37 pm

For mobile transportation requirements we should develop additional petroleum sources and refining capacity as quickly possible, as well as maintaining imports and encouraging efficiency. The other alternatives mentioned are much more expensive and would be a huge hit to our economy. When gas lines form and price goes to $5 or higher all the environmental objections will go away. The public should not be lead to believe that we don’t need massive amounts of gasoline, diesel and Jet fuel for the foreseeable future. Conservation schemes would be very worthy but would only slow the growth of our requirements. We should investigate alternative fuel technology for the time when we have no cheaper options and will have to adjust our economy and life style to suit. The alternative fuel ideas mentioned all have drawbacks. Ethanol is not free. Sugar Cane does not grow in Iowa. Corn growing requires lots of petroleum for manufacture of fertilizer. Some of the ethanol produced goes to power tractors, combines and irrigation pumps used to produce the crop. Existing ethanol production via corn is subsidized (another cost).

Current hydrogen production is a by-product of petroleum, so if we are to get away from that source we would most likely need to produce it by electrolysis which requires electrical power. If we are going to use electrical power for cars, just as well use it directly via batteries. Gaseous hydrogen tankage would be very large and limit the range of vehicles.
Other compressed gasses like natural gas being heavier would have less storage problems
Diesels will run on plant oil but again would use up a lot of the gain in crop production.

For stationary needs, we should get away from using any energy source that could be used for mobile purposes. That leaves coal and fission nuclear. We have lots of coal. NO2 and SO2 are local emissions and can be improved by breaking enviro road blocks to new power plant construction. CO2 happens when coal is burned and nothing can be done about that. CO2 floats up and circles the globe and only adds to what is already there. Whatever we do will not make much difference as developing countries like India and China will eventually dwarf our contribution. Just hope that the greenhouse theory remains just that. We can avoid or reduce CO2 production by building more fission nuclear plants. There is no good reason not to do that.
When the enviros get cold all their objections will be forgotten in a hurry.
Trouble is that they will have to shiver for a number of years waiting for plants to be built. Fusion energy is apparently so far away that it is almost useless to consider. We ought to look for breakthroughs anyway.
Tel-Chai Nation says:

November 14, 2005 at 4:40 pm

Republicans make fools of themselves by cancelling

Something is very wrong with the Republicans lately, as Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy discovered: they backed down on a bill for drilling oil in Alaska that could save the US tons of money.
PCD says:

November 14, 2005 at 6:21 pm

Brian, Ethanol is 90% gasoline. Do you have some sort of need to make a public fool of yourself by spouting inane things?

Comments are closed.