Old & Busted: Drill ANWR. New Hotness: Tax oil companies

Let’s take a break from the 2008 presidential campaign and focus on some idiocy from republicans in the Senate.

While Senate Democrats unveiled a new energy legislation this afternoon that would address the root causes of rising gasoline prices, the republicans were keeping an eye out for number 1.

The Democrat’s legislation, titled the Consumer-First Energy Act, proposes to raise taxes on oil companies – so naturally Senate republicans are against it – and would also halt new shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, authorize the president to crack down on price gouging and increase regulation against market speculation and price-fixing… so again, naturally, the republicans are against it.

While the Dems were offering a new and worthwhile salvo in the high price of oil and gas, republicans were dragging out a stale and publicly opposed proposal; drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) as well as off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. But this time it has a new name; American Energy Production Act.

There’s nothing that republicans do better than name things to make them sound innocent but in reality screw the people…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; “Even as it costs Americans more every day to fill up their gas tanks, Bush Republicans only offer more of the same failed energy policies that brought us to this point. […]Instead of helping big oil make more money at the expense of average Americans, we are forcing oil companies to change their ways. […] We will hold them accountable for unconscionable price-gouging and force them to invest in renewable energy or pay a price for refusing to do so.”

So let me see if I get this straight; the Democratic legislation protects consumers and the republican one, I surmise, will, and I realize I’m going out on a limb here, protect the oil companies and screw the environment…

And they wonder why their ‘brand’ is going the way of “President” Bush’s approval ratings…