Posted on 08/04/2008 4:13:03 PM PDT by Delacon
Signed by: John Boehner, Republican Leader; Roy Blunt, Republican Whip; Adam Putnam, Republican Conference Chairman; Eric Cantor, Chief Deputy Whip; and Members of the House Republican Conference
STEPHANOPOULOS: You've been getting a lot of heat on -- for not allowing a vote, a straight up-or-down vote on expanding drilling off the coasts of the United States. Why won't you permit a straight up- or-down vote?
PELOSI: What these -- what our colleagues are talking about is something that won't have an effect for 10 years and it will be 2 cents at the time. If they want to present something as part of an energy package, we're talking about something. But to single shoot on something that won't work and mislead the American people as to thinking it's going to reduce the price at the pump, I'm just not going to be a party of it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Except that it's not just Republicans calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire, let me show our viewers right now, is saying there's going to be a vote. Here he says exactly, there's going to be a vote. September 30th will not come and go without a vote on opening the outer continental shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can't be ignored any longer. He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He's talked to the leadership, and a vote must happen.
PELOSI: Well, maybe it will, as it's part of a larger energy package.
Instead we're saying, free the oil. Use it, don't lose it. There's 68 million acres in lower 48 and 10 or 20 million more acres in Alaska, where they're permitted, where they could drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from a failed energy policy.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But if you feel you have the better arguments, why not give a straight up-or-down vote for drilling?
PELOSI: Because the misrepresentation has been made that this is going to reduce the price at the pump. This is, again, a decoy, it's not a solution.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, if you're right, why not let it be debated out and have the vote?
PELOSI: We have a debate every single day on this subject. What you saw in the Congress this week was the war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies. That's what you saw on the Republican side of the aisle.
Democrats and Republicans are not right down party lines on this issue. There are regional concerns, as well as some people concerned about what this means back home for them.
But we have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow. And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as speaker, you promised in your commitment book, A New Direction for America, let me show our viewers, you said that bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives.
If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can't they have a vote?
PELOSI: They'll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote, and they may get a vote. But I have tried, you know, we have serious policy issues in our country. The president of the United States has presented this but for this, our economy would be booming. But for this, gas would be cheaper at the pump.
It's simply not true. And even the president himself in his statement yesterday and before then has said there is no quick fix for this by drilling.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you will not permit a vote. You may get beat, but you're not going to permit a vote on your own?
PELOSI: Well, again, we take this one step at a time. But why we're spending all this time on a parliamentary tactic when nothing less is at stake than the planet, the air we breathe, our children breathe? We have...
ping
Why doesn’t President Bush call them back?
She’s mad with power! Tell that cow to call the House back into session.
Amazing that Pelosi’s loyalty to her whacko leftist district and her own far out beliefs is greater than her dedication to keeping her majority.
I hope the Republicans (and Democrats even) keeping hitting Pelosi till she caves in. She is single handedly ruining our country and everyone sees it. How she can feel good about going around pimping her book while our country suffers with high oil/gas prices.
The bitch is clueless. Sorry, but the descriptive fits.
The only way Pelosi will hear anything else is if she is opposed in her DISTRICT for HER JOB! Somebody please tell me there is an opponent to Pelosi - I know she is in liberal San Francisco, but they are paying over $4.00 a gallon there and that has got to speak to her constituents!
“The only way Pelosi will hear anything else is if she is opposed in her DISTRICT for HER JOB! Somebody please tell me there is an opponent to Pelosi - I know she is in liberal San Francisco, but they are paying over $4.00 a gallon there and that has got to speak to her constituents!”
You don’t know San Franciscans very well do you. :)
I just find it amazing that an entire nation’s economy is being crippled and held hostage by one loony individual!
Two open letters to Pelosi, F U .
Really like your tagline. Wished it fit on a bumpersticker.
There is. But they are running against her on the grounds that she hasn’t brought the Iraq/Afghan Wars to an end or impeached President Bush. She’s actually pretty disliked around S.F. if I read the comments right.
Heck, I’ll take any campaign issue that loses her votes.
Don’t confuse Nancy’s constituants with rational humans, or just humans at all. All their vehicles run on compressed gas.
Feel free to use it. If you print a sticker, send me one
The woman has delusions of adequacy.
BTTT
They need to be more forceful than this.
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