Traction, Part Two
The Democrats have a real problem. Prior to the holiday recess, they announced how super-confident they were that they had the Republicans in a political corner with their enlightened energy policies. Except they have withdrawn all their big bills from consideration - because the people, bless their hearts - want DOMESTIC solutions that don't count on windy promises.
House Democrats are in a bind on the focal point of their energy plan.
Worried that a floor vote on any energy-related measure would trigger a Republican-forced vote on domestic drilling, the leadership has scrubbed the floor schedule of the energy legislation that it vowed to tackle after the Fourth of July recess.
Just before leaving for their districts, a number of House Democrats called a press conference to declare victory on a number of energy bills — including overwhelming passage of a bill to rein in excessive oil market speculation.
Democrats declared victory on a bill they failed to pass on the suspension calendar — their “use it or lose it bill” to force energy companies to either start drilling on their federally leased land or give it back — saying they had put 176 Republicans on record as siding with the oil companies over consumers.
And they vowed that the bill, the centerpiece of their energy message, would be back.
“We’ve taken some bold steps this week, and we’re going to build on that [after recess] with the bills we take up,” Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (Conn.) said at the press conference.
But, as of Monday afternoon, neither “use it or lose it” nor any other energy measure had been scheduled for floor action this week.
Democrats said they were simply taking a different approach to passing their top energy-related priorities.
What is their super-whamadyne strategy? The money quote:
“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind,’ ” said a Democratic aide.
Larger families - which exist in large numbers - the Democratic strategy leaves out. Those who actually understand the realities of power generation are shaking their heads - trust me on this. Regardless of what your political beliefs are, wind power is available about 30% of the time. Period. Most of the time the wind is either too weak or too strong to produce power.
Politics by wishful thinking is not going to solve the energy problem. Waiting for windy promises is downright stupid. The Democrats are terrified of having to vote an up-or-down "drill now" bill.
Because they would lose.
Other Links to this Post
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Public Secrets: from the files of the Irishspy — Wednesday, 9 July , 2008 @ 9:02 am
By TimF, Tuesday, 8 July , 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Gaius,
Even when the wind blows, there are problems. The large increase in number of wind turbines at the outflow of the Columbia River Gorge, combined with the high Cascade snow pack and late melt this year have created difficulties with load balancing . The grid to CA is at limit, so BPA (and other operators) are having to spill water in excess of water quality/fish limits to avoid filling the reservoirs. See http://www.newhouse.com/extra-water-and-wind-wattage-strains-power-grid-2.html for a good overview. As the article says, they haven’t had to shut down turbines yet. But it’s probably just a matter of time without further infrastructure improvements (or large numbers of plug-in Prius’ in Portland
By Marybel, Thursday, 10 July , 2008 @ 5:15 pm
In parts of Northernish and Centralish California where there are already large fields of wind turbines, there are problems … from the bird lovers! Evidentally, quite a few different species are flying into the blades, causing certain death to those unfortunate winged creatures. Birders were making noises, even a few years ago, about eliminating the turbines to "save our feathered friends." Maybe they will have to build a huge gigantic screened dome over those fields…or something. There’a always a down side. Someone’s always going to find it.
I think it’s going to get REALLY dicey when people are shivering in their homes this winter. I have some control over my driving, but I’m pretty sure, especially since Global Warming isn’t making winter nearly "warm" enough, my heating fuel bills are going to skyrocket.