PrintJanuary 11, 2009
Reid puts yet more land off limits for drilling
Harry Reid has, according to Amanda Carpenter at TownHall.com, called the US Senate into extraordinary session in order to remove thousands of acres of US lands from "unprotected" status to "endangered" status. This would have the effect of removing the acreage from the possibility of oil exploration and drilling. I guess that now that gasoline is well under four dollars a barrel Reid no longer feels that there is an energy crisis of any kind, nor does he feel any further pressure that one might otherwise feel from the country's over-reliance on foreign oil supplies -- problem solved.
As disturbing as that information is the most distressing part of this information is the Republican response that the best solution is to boycott the vote. As is made plain in the final paragraph of Miss (Mrs?) Carpenter's story Republicans will be torn about what to do because some of them have sponsored some porky provisions of their own. What happened to the vaunted filibuster and its use as a method of controlling legislative output?
All of this highlights the greater problem besetting the country. It is endemic corruption at all levels.
I know the arguments for having seasoned legislators in government. But I confess that I would rather have a bunch of rank amateurs trying to do their best and using common sense as a basic approach to problem solving than this bunch of corrupt, royal wannabes, and pretenders to nobility whose very existence as governors of our great country the US Constitution was intended to ban. The only thing missing from these entrenched and corrupt solons are the actual titles of nobility.
Read it all here and take careful note of the final paragraph and the role of the Republican Senator from the great State of Wyoming.
