Breaking: Democrats urge more dependence on foreign oil. Seriously.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Is there a more malevolent Statist hack in Congress than Chuck "Schmucky" Schumer (which is the nickname he prefers, I hear)?

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) urged Saudi Arabia to pump more oil yesterday. This comes after his party has repeatedly stifled energy production here at home...

Senate Republicans are bashing Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) call for increased Saudi Arabian oil production to help ease prices, alleging it shows that Democrats are weak when it comes to boosting North American energy supplies and jobs.

Schumer on Sunday urged Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to press Saudi officials to expand production, noting that the kingdom is producing well below its capacity of 12.5 million barrels per day.

Republicans are hopeful that the letter provides a political opening to undercut Democratic and White House energy policies.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office on Monday circulated a press release headlined “Top Democrat Senator Demands Increased Energy Production, Jobs In Saudi Arabia Rather Than Increasing American Energy And American Jobs.” ... Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, also doesn’t want Schumer’s letter to go unnoticed.

“Rather than approve the Keystone pipeline, the Democrats’ energy plan now calls for the most powerful nation in the free world to politely ask other countries for more oil and cross our fingers,” he said in a statement.

Not only did President Obama block the monstrous Keystone XL pipeline -- which would have helped reduce America's dependence on foreign oil -- but Schumer himself has helped block drilling throughout the United States.

Consider this blast from the past. Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine to April of 2008:

Now, yesterday ... [President Bush] made a presentation on energy and said much of the same thing you just said here; and Senator Schumer from New York went out and responded to it and said, "If we started drilling in ANWR today we wouldn't have a drop of oil for ten years." Well, of course, Bill Clinton vetoed the first time this came up in 1994. We could have been at this four years according to his ten-year plan. He also said something that mathematically doesn't make sense. He said that this million barrels a day that ANWR would produce would reduce the price of gasoline or oil -- I forget which one he specified -- by a penny. Well, that's absurd, because when the price of oil... When we lose a million barrels in the supply, does the price only go up a penny? They're using scare tactics, here. We need resources. We need our oil, and you got Schumer out there saying, "No, it wouldn't matter," and they're misleading people thinking that there's a substitute for it right around the corner when there's not.

They've been saying that drilling doesn't matter for over 20 years now. They're lying. They've been saying it would take 10 years to develop a new oil field. They're lying.

Democrats are provably wounding America's economy -- and its national security posture -- through their defective, Utopian schemes.

SOURCE: DOUG ROSS