RUSH: They’ve just made a discovery: The Arctic has 90 billion barrels of oil. BBC: ‘The Arctic thought to hold some 90 billion barrels of untapped oil equal to Russia’s total known reserves, this according to the U.S. geological survey.’ So we have Saudi-level oil in shale out in the Western states. We have Russia-level oil in the Arctic. Yet I have news in the stack today that America’s schools are thinking of cutting back to a four-day week because of energy costs. Now, there’s a part of me that says, ‘Why the hell couldn’t all this stuff have happened when I was a student?’ Like the teachers having, you know, crushes on students? Where was that? I know they are still going to be paid for five days, but they are only going to work four because of energy costs.
Now, what kind of sense does this make? The teachers are still going to be paid; the students are going to learn less. You think they are going to extend the length of the class school day? Nah. I can’t imagine the students putting up with it. The inmates are running the asylum at these schools anyway. What should we do? Should we drill or should we cut back on American education? At any rate, we’ve got all this oil apparently out there and guess who just continues to stand in the way of developing it? The Democrat Party. There’s an interesting story in the New York Times today: ‘Congressional Republicans and Democrats agree that high gas prices are the driving domestic political issue of the moment…’ Not Iraq, not Afghanistan, not Obama’s trip. Gasoline prices. ‘…purring new campaign ads and maneuvering almost every day, but that’s about all they can agree on when it comes to the national panic at the pump.’
The Republicans have issued an ultimatum: No votes on anything until we get a vote on drilling in the Senate. And the Democrats don’t want any part of it, and there’s a reason why, and the New York Times has published it. ‘Democrats are worried about defections in their ranks. They are scrambling to avoid votes on expanded drilling,’ because they might lose because there are a lot of Democrats who would vote for it. This week, therefore, the ‘Democrats canceled the series of sessions that could have provided an opening for Republicans. House members are increasingly bringing legislation to the floor under rules that denied Republicans the chance to counter with a drilling proposal. Some Democrats grudgingly concede the Republicans have finally gotten a little traction on an issue after struggling for months to find their footing, but they say it’s far from enough to fundamentally alter the election landscape.’
Yeah, well, it’s only July now and if they keep this up… I’m telling you. This is an issue that is made to order. The Democrats are so vulnerable on this. It is an issue for Senator McCain to draw distinctions between himself and Obama and the Democrat Party. We’ve spoken about it on this program over and over and over again, and the Democrats know it and yet they are still being obstinate. In fact, Mike, I want to grab the last sound bite in the roster. It is Nancy Pelosi. It’s audio sound bite number one, and this was this morning at her daily press briefing. This is Pelosi’s answer to drilling and providing new resources, energy resources for the American driver.
PELOSI: The president is sitting on 700 million barrels of oil! We’re saying, ‘Mr. President, free our oil! It’s our oil! It belongs to the, uh, American taxpayer because this is oil that we have purchased!’
RUSH: This, she’s talking about the strategic reserve. Trying to turn this around and blame it on the president for 700, what was it, 700 million? It’s 700 million barrels of oil? It wouldn’t affect the price. It would not affect the supply. It’s something you could do one time. So now the effort is to blame Bush. Free our oil? Free our oil? It’s, Pelosi wants oil now but she doesn’t want to get any new supply of it? This is for genuine emergencies, what’s in the strategic reserve, and there isn’t an emergency because there is not a supply shortage.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to go back to what Pelosi said with that Pelosi sound bite. Here, listen to what she said. This is at a presser, might have been this morning, probably yesterday. Here it is.
PELOSI: The President is sitting on 700 million barrels of oil. We’re saying, Mr. President, free our oil. It’s our oil. It belongs to the American taxpayer because this is oil that we have purchased.
RUSH: Now, she doesn’t know how she stepped in it, and the McCain camp, I’m going to give a little assistance here on how to react to this. What are the Democrats saying? The Democrats say we can’t drill our way out of it. ‘In five years, it will be 10 years! We can’t drill our way out of it! Ten years.’ Okay. So she wants to release 700 million barrels in a one-shot deal which wouldn’t mean anything. But nevertheless, billion, million, whatever, she wants to release 700 million barrels. But I thought we couldn’t drill our way out of it. What does drilling our way out of it mean? More supply. Well, if drilling our way out of it with many more than 700 million barrels is not going to get us out of the problem, then what the hell is a piddling little 700 million barrels going to do? It’s staggering. Oil from the Saudi fields and these tanks, the strategic reserve, that’s apparently fine. That oil, that’s cool. But only our own American oil is evil. Maybe we ought to sell Alaska back to the Ruskies and then go drill there or at least buy what they drill. That’s the way to do it. Sell Alaska back to the Russians. Let the Russians drill the oil; buy it from them. Pelosi will love it. She sort of stumbles before she says the oil belongs to the taxpayers. It sort of chokes her up since, you know, all things are property of the government.