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FacebookPorter takes center stage in GOP bid for energy bill
As parties fight edge on gas price issue, he brings petition for vote on bill to increase domestic drilling
Mon, Aug 4, 2008 (2 a.m.)
Washington — One morning last week, as Congress remained bitterly divided over how best to lower the price of $4-a-gallon gas, Rep. Jon Porter stepped into the fray with a parliamentary maneuver that was uncharacteristically aggressive.
Porter, a Republican, is in one of the nation’s most contested reelection battles as his party tries to avoid losses in the House. He brought forward a petition that could force a vote on a potentially popular offshore oil drilling bill Democrats oppose.
The state Democratic Party back home immediately criticized Porter as come-lately, saying he was trying to play catch-up to Dina Titus, the state senator challenging him this fall, who had two days earlier unveiled her own energy plan.
But Porter’s move was in fact part of a broader Republican strategy, established months ago in offices on Capitol Hill.
Orchestrated by the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, the goal was to insert Republican-backed energy proposals into a floor schedule dominated by Democratic leadership. To do this, they would enlist lawmakers such as Porter to push forward one bill each week — bills calling for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or increasing conservation. For the next seven weeks, they did just that.
Republicans sought the upper hand on an issue that could be their best chance at winning voters this fall.
In both the House and Senate, the result has been a consistent Republican message: Drilling domestically must be part of the answer for rising gas prices — a position that has buoyed the party as polls show most Americans agree.
But polls also show Americans blame Big Oil for the pain at the pump as Exxon Mobil, Shell and other companies post record profits. CNN highlighted just how much the oil companies have been making during a newscast last week with the stunning figure of $1,500 per second, which it dramatized with a wall clock counting off the dollars.
While Democrats have hammered the oil companies, they have also produced a more mixed message they say mirrors the complexity of the gas-price problem. Their strategy has been to try to tax windfall oil company profits, rein in oil market speculators and open the strategic petroleum reserve.
Both parties insist alternative energy sources must be part of the mix.
As lawmakers begin campaigning at home this August having reached no solutions on the Hill, watch for each party to blame the other for the problem of $4-a-gallon gas.
Nathan Gonzales, an analyst at the Rothenberg Political Report, said it is too soon to say which party will ultimately convince voters it is on the right side of the issue.
“It’s hard to determine who is going to be held accountable for gas prices,” he said.
Republicans have the right message, Gonzales said, but the party suffers from other perceived shortcomings that have tarnished its image since 2006, when voters turned over control of Congress to Democrats. Polls show voters prefer Democrats to Republicans in Congress, including on energy policy.
“Republicans still have a larger credibility problem with the American people,” he said.
But Gonzales added, “I don’t know if Democrats can feel too confident.” Congress, run now by Democrats, still has the lowest approval rating in its history.
Porter started talking with House leaders about action on gas prices a month ago.
The whip’s office in May drew up a list of bills targeted for discharge petitions — which means they would be forced to a vote if half the House, 218 lawmakers, signed on.
As gas prices were on the rise, House Republican leaders made energy their top issue. In the Senate, a June meeting on energy policy drew dozens of senators — on time, an aide noted — launching what would become a daily energy strategy session.
“Making energy No. 1 was a no-brainer,” said a Republican leadership aide in the House.
Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign said early on that energy offered an opportunity for Republicans to change the political climate.
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who runs the Democratic reelection strategy in the Senate, told reporters last week the momentum has shifted. Voters understand the Democratic message.
“It took us a few days to get our sea legs,” Schumer said. “We have many different voices here.”
Porter volunteered to file a discharge petition in late July, and introduced it the following week.
“The congressman has been hearing about this issue from the private sector and the public, and very aggressive in approaching leadership to act on this issue,” said his spokesman, Matt Leffingwell.
So far, more than 100 lawmakers have signed on. But like the other petitions, which are mainly viewed by the opposing party as political stunts, his petition has no Democratic supporters. It remains shy of the 218 signatures needed to move forward.
Discussion: 33 comments so far…
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Jon Porter had a chance to help us.
He could have voted on the three bills that were up for approval to give us some relief at the pump and on our power bills.
For over a week, Jon Porter refused to vote.
For over a week, Jon Porter and the republicans stopped the house and senate.
For over a week, Jon Porter ignored his constituents.
He even went so far as to block increased body armor for our troops and health care for our veterans.
His oil company contributors must have been VERY HAPPY! They made 51 billion dollars in three months!
Nevada voters need to ask why Jon Porter wouldn't help us when he had the chance.
We will remember in November, Jon Porter!
The oil companies make $1500 a second?
So the oil companies earned more than $907,200,000 while Jon Porter refused to help us?
Its no wonder he accepts so much cash from them! The longer he sits on his rear, the more money they make!
To be fair the spending bills on soldiers and veterans were littered with billions in earmarks for special projects across the country.
Its a good thing the oil companies are making money, the more money they make the more jobs they create and the more they search for oil and other alternative fuels.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Democrats have locked up trillions of dollars of oil and gas.
Obama, kicking and scream and reading the poll that says 75% of Americans want it, has decided to kinda be in favor of a little offshore drilling.
Why do Republicans act like our energy problems are new? Our energy problems started when the Texas oilman Bush took office, and have gotten progressively worse.
Where was the concern when Republicans controlled both legislative bodies and the executive branch? Why do Republicans oppose opening our strategic petroleum reserves, which would immediately affect prices at the pump. Why do republicans oppose "use it or lose it" on offshore drilling leases? Why don't republicans see record oil company profits as part of the problem? Why did Bush wait till election season to remove his father's ban on offshore drilling? Why haven't oil companies drilled on the 66 million acres offshore already available to them? Why do oil companies donate almost exclusively to republican campaigns?
Jon Porter, would you please answer these questions?
Nance: "Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Democrats have locked up trillions of dollars of oil and gas."
The elder George Bush placed the ban in 1990. So I guess you mean George Bush locked it up.
The democrats have offered a vote on offshore drilling with "use it or lose it" attached to all leases. The oil complanies do not want the ammendment because it would force them to drill, so the Republicans have blocked the ammendment and therefore the vote.
Exxon pays 57% of its profits in taxes. Look at the financial statements to the SEC. The government already takes over half the money, so every dime you say Exxon made, the government made more. That doesn't include the taxes paid by the owners of Exxon. Every dividend paid to shareholders are then taxed again. Except dividends paid to Pension funds (public employee pension funds own more Exxon stock than any other). If you have money in a 401, it has oil stocks. Taxing evil corporation take YOUR money, not someone else's. Contact Harry Reid and tell him to call the Senate back from vacation and pass Drilling, Nuclear, Oil Shale, Natural Gas, and coal mining. Quit following SF rep. Nancy Pelosi off the end of the earth. This is Nevada and we are going broke.
Phone: 202-224-3542 Fax: 202-224-7327 Toll Free for Nevadans: 1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343)
email link
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm...
75% of it's profits in TAXES!!?? You're high, dude. Learn to read a balance sheet. The tax report alone shows that they make sure the oil that they own is sold before it ever enters the U.S. They hide more money from US taxation than a third of the nations of the world produce in their combined GNP. Try less than 5% of their US revenue, and they design their revenue stream to blatantly avoid taxation. The tax credits given to Exxon for oil production is more than three times their tax liability in every year since 1982, and yet their expenditures for new production is less than 5% of their after tax profit in each year during the same period. Watch the 07 and 08 annual reports: new production and exploration will be less than 1% of after tax profits.
You're only taxed when you sell the stock, cowboy. And, given the intelligence of most of your comments, I'm sure you dumped it years ago. Institutional investors buy Exxon and Mobile, then use these holdings to leverage other investments. Hell, I own Exxon also. I'm a Democrat, but I ain't stupid. Okay, I held GE, so maybe I'm a little stupid. But you're stupider! Maybe even stupiderest if you think an oil lease granted today will mean diddly.
As to nuclear, while I'm all for it, after reading your comments, I fear Yucca's already leaking some sort of brain denseificator. Either that or it's a wacky-tobacky afternoon for you.
I love reading the 75% of Americans...yaada, yaada. I wonder if this is the same guy that wrote Shrub's campaign line from 4 years ago that they'd captured or killed 75% of Al Qaeda. Note how well that statistic worked out.
Personally, I'm 75% certain that two-thirds of what you say has a 25% chance of being bull-hockey, with the remaining 11/16ths having little or nothing to do with anything half of us are saying. Whew! I'm just about ready for that 5th of bourbon!
Sorry. You said 57%, not 75%. It's not that I'm stupider, you guys just make me cross-eyed! 57% is still wrong, but 75% would be 13% wronger, and at a tax rate of 37% that means.........AAAGGGHHH! I'm going for a walk!
A recent poll said that 75% of Americans are in favor of new and more offshore drilling.
Exxon last year paid 57% of its profits in taxes.
And that's taxable revenue for US production. The tax credits apply even to non-oil producing manufacturing, plastics and other cracking derivatives included. That coupled with reduced tax rates thanks to 'W' could buy every man woman and child in Indiana and Kansas a 2 year-old Nissan Sentra. With a 6-disc CD changer, even.
With all my corrections, you're still wrong and your mother still dresses you funny! NOW I'm going for my walk and then it's medication time.
Nance is worried about the oil companies paying too much in taxes? Relief is in sight!
"Just one of [McCain's] proposals—cutting the corporate rate from 35 percent to 25 percent—would cut taxes for five largest U.S. oil companies by $3.8 billion a year (see table below). The five corporations analyzed—ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Valero Energy, and Marathon—are the five largest oil companies as ranked by Fortune Magazine. All are members of the Fortune 50.4 Together, they earned $80 billion worldwide in 2007."
I'm sure you're happy to know John McCain's looking out for the little guys...
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Valero, ConocoPhillips and Marathon!
Hmmm... I wonder who the largest corporate contributors to the Republican National Party are?
"Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling. "
"Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May. "
Wow, it pays well to do the oil companies' bidding!
http://www.boughtbybigoil.com/
JF, I've have asked you this a couple of times on a couple of different threads .... and I'm still waiting.
What is the citation for your "75% of Americans blah blah blah" quote? You have posted it on virtually every thread on this web site.
CITE IT.
Please.
“Support also has risen over that same period for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico — 77 percent today, up from 68 percent.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,3698...
“Three in four likely voters – 74 percent – support offshore drilling for oil in U.S. coastal waters and more than half (59 percent) also favor drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.”
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/jun/...
“A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey—conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue--finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c...
CNN
“The poll, which surveyed more than 500 adults by phone in July, found that 69% of respondents support the idea of offshore drilling, while 30% opposed it. In June, 73% were in favor of offshore drilling.”
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/30/news/eco...
Even in the Blue states they are for drilling
“A majority of Californians favor more oil drilling off the coast, according to a statewide survey released Wednesday, for the first time since oil prices spiked nearly three decades ago.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...
See? Was that so difficult?
Now I will read their criteria for the polls because to be honest, I don't believe it for a minute.
Sorry; that's just me. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if I had to guess (and I do because I haven't yet read the criteria), the question went something like this:
"If offshore drilling would drop the price of a gallon of gas by a dollar, would you be for or against it?"
Call me a skeptic.
Here's the link to the actual Zogby poll (well, to the "Zogby In The News" piece on it anyway) ... and no where does it mention "75%". In fact, the closest it gets is 60% so one has to wonder where "The Naples News" got its figures:
http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadClips.db...
As to Rasmussen Reports, I went to the link and immediately shut the window because the first thing I saw was two huge "John McCain" banner ads. Nope; no bias there.
CNN Money: No way to tell what the actual questions were. And a sampling of 500 is iffy at best.
As to the SF Chronicle article, it stated 51% of **Californians** favored it. This poll was conducted during the highest spike in gas prices.
Sorry, jf; but I'm not buying it. Next time go directly to the source for the actual facts and understand that EVERY secondary source has a bias to it.
Oh and no, I didn't bother with Fox "news".
I am OK with you refusing to believe poll after poll after poll after poll after poll after poll that says that a significant majority of Americans are in favor of new oil drilling.
I am hoping that Obama, Pelosi and Reid are just as stubborn about these polls, too.
Oh by the way, there was poll that came out today that gave a 1% lead to McCain.
Historically, Democrats usually have a 10-15 point lead in August.
If you have a favorite polling company then tell me what it is. I check to see if it did on poll on the subject.
"A majority of Americans (57%) interviewed in a mid-May Gallup Panel survey approve of expanding drilling for oil in offshore and wilderness areas considered to be off-limits."
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108121/Majori...
Would you be more or less likely to support a candidate who supports easing restrictions on offshore domestic drilling?
More likely
All: 57%
Republicans: 73%
Independents: 60%
Democrats: 44%
Less likely
All: 31%
Republicans: 21%
Independents: 28%
Democrats: 40%
No difference
All: 9%
Republicans: 5%
Independents: 11%
Democrats: 10%
Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,007 adults July 25-27. Margin of error: ±3 percentage points for full sample
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries...
Nance, these election polls are meaningless.
Not only is it far too early, but these specific polls are meaningless.
The polls that everyone are citing now are nationwide. We don't vote that way. When you break the race down into districts and the electoral college, things look dramatically different.
But even those (which give Obama an edge, admitttedly) are going to be way off the mark.
Again, this time last year, the pollsters were certain it was going to be a Clinton/Guiliani fight for the Presidency. Last time I checked, Guiliani flamed out early while Clinton stubbornly stayed till she couldn't stay no more.
We still have no idea who the Veeps are going to be, and haven't had a single debate.
I'll even paint you a pretty picture: imagine what would happen if McCain, by some miracle of a higher being, beat Obama senseless during the first debate? Obama's numbers would tumble.
What if McCain chose Larry Craig as his running mate? I'm not sayin' it would happen, but it has such a huge impact on the race, it's just too early to use the polls to predict anything.
I will say this: Obama's candidacy is constantly being compared to Reagan and Clinton's. Neither of them had commanding leads at this point in the race. But it's still too early.
Larry Craig as VP...very funny.
I agree the polls have very little meaning and they probably will be very unreliable because of the "young people or new voters" variable and the "white people afraid to tell poll takers who they are really voting for" (Hillary always did better on primary day over what the polls said) variable.
They might be able to detect movement.
Obama should come out of the convention with a double digit lead. That is the historic trend.
Clinton had a 20 point lead over Bush in mid-July 1992 -
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Arch...
Traditionally during the summer months the Democratic nominee builds up a 10 to 20 points leads.
Then in Sept/Nov the races get much tighter.
This is not true this year.
I have no clue what that means. Perhaps it means Obama will blow out McCain.
Okay, Jim Gibbons as VP? LOL!
I think analyzing those Clinton numbers in the right context (mid-July in '92 was post-convention and post-Gore selection) might shine a light on what's going on, but you're right, the turnout and question of the "real" white vote will play a heavy factor.
jf, I don't consider 60% or 51% a "significant majority".
Now if it was your oft-stated 75% or 80%, yes, I'd agree to the "significant majority" tag.
Sorry, but I'm a little tougher when it comes to labeling something a "significant majority".
And again, if you know anything about statistics and polling, you really need to know two things to decide if it's a legitimate poll:
1. The exact questions asked (and what was the lead-up text to those questions); and,
2. How the samples were chosen.
Without this information the polls are fairly meaningless and only meant to grab headlines.
I'm really not trying to be obstinate here; I meant it when I said I'd listen to any reasonable argument.
I will help pay for this ad on a billboard:
"America, all the national polls say that at least 57% of Amercians are in favor of new offshore drilling. We, Democrats, do not think that is a significant majority. We are making a stand on principle. You can vote for Republicans if you really want offshore drilling. God Save Saudi Arabia."
jf, how do expect anyone to take you seriously when you post crap like that?
The republicans had a chance to immediately divert oil from the strategic national reserve to immediately lower prices. And what did the republicans do? NOTHING! They sat around and whined they couldn't add pork and special interest money to the bills!
When there was a bill to crack down on speculators and futures trading on unregulated foreign markets, what did they do? NOTHING!
When there was a bill to offer tax breaks for energy, what did the republicans do? NOTHING!
When they whined they couldn't add amendments, and Reid compromised and offered them some, what did they do? NOTHING!
When the Democrats tried to pass real energy reform, the republicans hid in a corner until they left.
Now, even the President is annoyed with their antics and said he won't call congress back into session!
Republicans like Jon Porter should have taken the chance to pass real energy reform. But he didn't.
Instead, he had a party on the floor of the house.
Nevada will not forget, Jon Porter!
Democrats are against opening new offshore drilling.
Is that right?
Is your short-term memory, ok, Nance?
Didn't you just link this story in another comment?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/080...
Didn't you also acknowledge that Obama said the gang of 10 plan, which includes additional off-shore drilling, was acceptable?
Uhhh... are you alright?
I get so confused.
Obama once said that offshore drilling would not help at all not now and not ever and that it would harm the planet.
Now he says he is for it a little bit but two seconds later he says he is really against it.
I guess I need an Obama Universal Translator (OUT).
jf: Is it the perceived "flip-flopping" that's bugging you? If that's the case, then you must be out of your mind with McCain's flip-flops. Wow.
Nance, you can't even quote him, so why worry your little head about it?
Obama said that off-shore SHOULDN'T be done, because it isn't a short-term solution, threatens the environment without proper technology, and just furthers our addiction.
It's not that hard to comprehend, now.
So Obama is against offshore drilling.
Right?
Nance, you've shown today how you and nuance just spell disaster.
I know you need it in a binary form, but that's not what you'll get.
Since you have done such a wonderful job of mischaracterizing, fibbing and completely making up statistics out of thin air (aka "Nance-ify"), why don't you just set us straight?
I mean, is this like your previous claims that there were "trillions of billions of barrels of shale oil" in Colorado, or your ridiculously false claim that Obama mandated 150 million plug-in hybrids on the roads by 2015?
Or maybe it's like that ANWR bill that you claimed never passed the Senate and House, but was somehow magically vetoed by Clinton?
Getting back on point, now that Dina's taken energy off the table, what does poor Porter have to run on? Year after year of blindly following Bush policies? Year after year of doing the bidding of his oil company contributors? The off-key musing of his band?
Shouldn't Porter just drop out now to prep for the gubernatorial race in '10?
I need help understanding Obama.
Is he for offshore drilling or not?
Somebody tell me.
Ms. Taxus is just like Obama.
Ms. Taxus was against offshore drilling. Now she is for a little offshore drilling with special special special special conditions. Which means Ms. Taxus is like 2% in favor of offshoring drilling.