Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District has been the recipient of over a half million dollars in various grants this week. Congressman Geoff Davis stated that these funds will help “provide enhanced safety for our law enforcement officers and citizens” and will “educate our youth about the dangers of drug abuse” these grants will “help improve the quality of life in Kentucky.” To read more about the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants and the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Drug Free Communities Program click here and here.
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Maysville Community and Technical College received a $399.967.00 grant through the Department of Education’s Strengthening Institutions Program. The college says they plan to use the grant to improve the quality and accessibility of its distance education programs.
To read more about the education grant and the program it will help please click here.
Leading House and Senate Democrats support increasing U.S. domestic energy production and exploration, yet Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been “sidestepping battles with Republicans over offshore drilling.” It now appears that she will have to sidestep members of her own party as well.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
Natural Resources Committee Member
“Then we better get started, because the longer we delay, the more we’re jeopardizing the American economy.” (Fox News, 7/7/08)
Rep. Gene Green (D-TX)
Energy and Commerce Committee Member
“Americans need Congress to look at real solutions in addressing our energy needs, especially when we have $4 a gallon gas. … We need answers and not just slogans… We need to do it all. … We have senators going to Saudi Arabia begging for them to increase their production, but we won’t increase ours in some of the most, potential, productive areas?” (Floor remarks, 6/26/08)
Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA)
Energy and Commerce Committee Member
“My concern with my leadership is that they’re not letting all the people in the room to present the facts. Where are all the pro-oil legislators? I’m not in the room. I don’t know who is. My feeling is we are not being all-inclusive to pass legislation that can get through the Senate and avoid a veto.” (The Hill, 7/8/08)
Rep. Nick Lampson (D-TX)
Chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee
“[L]egislation to increase domestic energy production, including the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf, should be a part of the way forward and not blocked from consideration in favor of harmful efforts to stifle production on existing leasing.” (FortBendNow, 7/7/08)
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
Assistant Majority Leader
“A top U.S. Democratic senator said in a newspaper interview published Wednesday that he would consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and gas drilling. ‘I’m open to drilling and responsible production,’ Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin told The Wall Street Journal, adding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could also support the move.” (Reuters, 7/9/08)
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Member of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology Jurisdiction
“I think drilling in the United States makes a lot of sense. … I have always supported that. I think it [new oil exploration and drilling off the coast of Florida and off the coast of New Jersey in the Atlantic] needs to be done right.” (Fox News, 7/8/08)
Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)
“Webb wants his home state to have the right to explore for energy off Virginia’s coast. … ‘We can’t just not act,’ he said. ‘It’s time we had some leadership to really grab the larger picture and solve these problems.’” (The Hill, 6/19/08)
House Republicans are crafting pro-production energy legislation that they will seek to bring to a vote before Congress goes home in August. House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putman (R-FL) has said that the Republicans have “tried to highlight efforts to solve America’s energy problem a thousand ways to Sunday, and [Democrats] keep pulling them from committee, pulling them from the floor and kicking the can down the road.” A Democrat staffer was questioned about when the Speaker would bring the much need energy legislation to the floor and their response was, “Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind.’”. To read the entire piece concerning the Democrats energy bill being out of gas, click here.
Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid showed how truly out of step he is with Kentuckians. In a Fox Business interview, Senator Reid claimed “coal makes us sick.” Coal is Kentucky’s most abundant resource and a piece of the puzzle to solving our nation’s energy crisis. I would invite you to sign Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s energy petition and help him send a message to his colleague Harry Reid that we support coal-to-liquid technologies and common sense solutions to lowering gas prices. Empty rhetoric is not helping lower the price of gas or reduce our dependency on Middle Eastern oil. Congress must take action to increase domestic energy exploration and production.
Congressman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) sought to bring a bill to allow offshore drilling to a vote in the House Appropriations Committee this morning. The Democrat Chairman of the committee, David Obey (D-WI), was outraged and stated that voting on the bill was not “a productive use of time” and that “There are too many real things that Congress can do.”
I cannot imagine a more “real thing” Congress can do right now than to pass legislation that will allow us to become more energy independent and lower the price at the pump. The Chairman of the committee remarked that if Americans wanted this type of energy legislation then we should “get 35 additional Republicans elected” because until then the Democrats are “setting the agenda.”
Today, the United States Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.’s ban on handguns. Congressman Davis lauded the Supreme Court’s ruling and stated that the “decision today affirms what we have known all along: that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to own a firearm.” Congressman Davis has been very engaged in the fight to uphold the Second Amendment. Earlier this year he joined more than three hundred members of the House and Senate in signing an amicus brief encouraging the Supreme Court to overturn the D.C. gun ban. To read the statement of both Congressman Davis and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell please click on the link to the Kentucky Enquirer here.
Willard Green, the president of the independent American Association of Petroleum Geologists’ (AAPG), sent a letter to House leadership offering warnings and several suggestions about how to lower the prices at the pump. The AAPG is the world’s largest professional geological association with over 33,000 members in over 116 countries. One of the main purposes of AAPG is to increase public awareness of petroleum and energy-related polices.
In Mr. Green’s letter to House leadership he clearly lays out several do’s and don’ts on how to ease the price of gas. He urges “caution” and says we should not pass policies that will “increase exploration costs, decrease the available time to properly evaluate leases, and restrict access to federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf.” These policies he warns “do not provide the American people with short-term relief from high prices and undermine the goal of increasing stable long-term supplies.”
Mr. Green explains in the letter that “conservative and efficiency improvements are necessary responses” but “equally important” is the need to “increas[e] long-term supply from stable parts of the world, such as our very own federal lands and Outer Continental Shelf.”
Mr. Green uses the rest of the letter to explain the process we use to explore for oil and natural gas. Hopefully the Democrat Leadership in the House will read this letter and heed the advice of one of our nation’s leading geologist. To read Mr. Green’s letter please click here.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed the “Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices”— this was over two years ago. Since then we have seen a 60% increase in gas prices. Watch the video below to find out how much Nancy Pelosi believes a gallon of gas costs.
