The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

Last Thursday I mentioned Brownback’s foray into energy policy. While trolling the murky depths of the conservative blogosphere I happened upon a white paper by one of the authors of the the Fuel Choices for American Security Act of 2005. Written by Rep Jack Kingston, one of the bill’s cosponsors in the House, it outlines much of what all of the news organizations have mentioned plus one glaring exception:

The U.S. must expand domestic oil production from domestic resources in Alaska, the deep ocean waters of the outer continental shelf, and other areas that will be economically viable in this new higher price oil market – western shale reserves for example. Most of the 130 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil reserves in the U.S. are currently off limits due to restrictions on new development in Alaska, on federal lands, and on the Outer Continental Shelf. Likewise, all previous conservation efforts and efficiency improvements in the transportation industry have been overwhelmed by rapidly expanding demand. With oil consumption expected to grow by another 60 percent over the next 25 years, conservation alone is not the solution.

Drilling. Who woulda thunk it? Obviously drilling in Alaska is a bad idea consisting of a handout to Oil Corporations with no actual payoffs for American petroleum consumers.

More interesting is the lack of this information in the stories about the plan. As we all know, the republicans in the House of Representatives have enough votes to pass drilling in Alaska. Where they lack is in the Senate. If the Senate version of the bill does not include the drilling provisions while the House version does, in conference committee the drilling could be rammed through by republicans.

Plus, with no CAFE standard raises this bill does nothing to prevent GM from getting government subsidies to manufacture a hybrid Hummer that gets 2 more mpg.

We still don’t have a copy of the actual legislation. I’ll continue to follow up as more information becomes available.