You tired of high gas prices in the US? Do your candidates care?

(Consumer-First Energy Act of 2008 )
Measure Title: A bill to provide energy price relief and hold oil companies and other entities accountable for their actions with regard to high energy prices, and for other purposes

www.senate.gov...

Do you vote with your pocket book in mind??? Well you should start!

The only reason for a Senator to vote this down is because:

A. Who cares about the constituency?

B. Big Oil comes first baby!

Wake up Obama and Mccain you didn't bother to even vote!


[edit on 30-7-2008 by mental modulator]

[edit on 30-7-2008 by mental modulator]

No we would rather bitch about him not opening xmas presents or bday presents.. RIGHT GUYS??

Another upcoming vote in the Senate is the "Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act." Write your Senators!

reply to post by mental modulator

Yup Congress gets nothing done alright!
Don't want to infringe on a free market I guess...
Gotta love the oil execs... XOXOXOXO's

NAYs ---43
Alexander (R-TN) Allard (R-CO) Barrasso (R-WY)
Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX) Craig (R-ID) Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC) Dole (R-NC) Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL)
Specter (R-PA) Stevens (R-AK) Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH)
Wicker (R-MS)


Not Voting - 6
Byrd (D-WV)
Clinton (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Kennedy (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Obama (D-IL)

American consumer



[edit on 30-7-2008 by mental modulator]

[edit on 30-7-2008 by mental modulator]

[edit on 30-7-2008 by mental modulator]

I have to admit I didn't get a chance to read the bill, but... what a strange tally. Did you read it? Any opinion on the results vs. the content? Just curious. Trying to learn something from this thread. Wonder why the votes were the way they were.

Originally posted by flashback
I have to admit I didn't get a chance to read the bill, but... what a strange tally. Did you read it? Any opinion on the results vs. the content? Just curious. Trying to learn something from this thread. Wonder why the votes were the way they were.

No honestly I cannot believe any public official would have voted against this...
It was a pure bill, it didn't ask for funding, no amendments, nothing...
I believe this one was actually just for the people which is unusual.
The bill would have opened up an investigation of sorts delving into, price gouging
speculation and possible market manipulation

I think the NEY votes are despicable! It was done on mass to protect the BIG OIL
INTERESTS or TO MAKE THE SENATE LOOK IMPOTENT or OUT OF LACK OF CARE
FOR THE CONSUMERS???

Anyhow its shameful and shows no regard for the everyday citizen...

Politics aside

Originally posted by mental modulator

Originally posted by flashback
I have to admit I didn't get a chance to read the bill, but... what a strange tally. Did you read it? Any opinion on the results vs. the content? Just curious. Trying to learn something from this thread. Wonder why the votes were the way they were.

No honestly I cannot believe any public official would have voted against this...
It was a pure bill, it didn't ask for funding, no amendments, nothing...
I believe this one was actually just for the people which is unusual.
The bill would have opened up an investigation of sorts delving into, price gouging
speculation and possible market manipulation

I think the NEY votes are despicable! It was done on mass to protect the BIG OIL
INTERESTS or TO MAKE THE SENATE LOOK IMPOTENT or OUT OF LACK OF CARE
FOR THE CONSUMERS???

Anyhow its shameful and shows no regard for the everyday citizen...

Politics aside

Okay, take a step back and read the bill again. This bill does a lot more than just call for an investigation. In fact I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that all this bill did was open an investigation - it clearly shows in Section 2 that Congress (mainly Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who is sponsoring the bill) has already made its' determinations.

This bill does the following:

* Raises taxes on domestic oil production
* Attempts to name the best and worst energy alternatives
* Imposes price-gouging legislation

Right now, we're not set up to switch to any form of alternative energy without spending some major money and we don't even know how beneficial any of the alternative energy sources would be at this point because we haven't studied them enough. It's true that we need to get off of our dependence on foreign oil, and the best first step to do that is to drill our own freakin oil right from our own back yard!

Keeping that in mind, the very LAST we need is to impost further taxes on domestic oil production. In fact, if you knew that domestic oil production would bring prices down in the forseeable future, I fail to see why you would WANT to implement a such a tax - it seeks to block domestic oil production! It's almost like Harry Reid is trying to make everyone in Congress sign off on the statement "Okay, we'll release ANWR for drilling, but it's gonna cost you big time!".

As far as naming the best and worst of alternative renewable energies, there are none right now that are developed enough to put into mass production on such a scale that could replace oil and not totally break the economy.

And the price gouging measure act the same way that price controls acted back in the 70's during the energy crisis of that era by making high prices illegal. Price controls did limit the price of gas back then, but consumers also waited is horribly long lines and gas stations often ran out of gas before everyone could fill up. So like the absurd tax hike suggestion, this price gouging measure would only discourage the supply that we need to be producing from our own soil and end up doing more harm than good.

This bill, if passed, would raise energy prices for all American consumers, not lower them! The question you SHOULD be asking is why you the majority of your congressional Democrats oppose drilling on our home soil as a first step toward energy independence? Are they the ones having their pockets lined by the Saudis?

Something to think about. Please read the bill before you jump all over it and the people who voted against it. Remember these people weren't voted into office because they vowed to screw America over.

reply to post by sos37


I second you on what you said. Read the bill first. The President has to declare that an energy emergency exists. This is nothing more than a bill to make us think that Congress is doing something. Since the Democrats are the majority in charge of Congress, I ask you why they haven't passed a real energy bill? My belief is because if they do then Obama has one less issue as to why people should vote for him. As long as people are angry about gas prices it plays to Obama's and the Democrats advantage.

You beat me to it, I just came to the same conclusion. I like the "windfall profits" section. It basically says that if the oil companies make more profits than what the government calls "reasonably inflated average profit" then all additional proceeds are taxed 25%. "Reasonably inflated average profit" is defined as the average of their profit from 2002-2006 +10% in the bill.

If you know anything about business, you know that the idea is to invest money and turn a profit. If the percentage profit isn't high enough, the money is invested elsewhere. That's just basic business. I wouldn't invest my money in a gas company that was turning 1-2% profit and neither would anybody else.

Now, let's analyze this. In 2002-2006, the price per barrel of oil ranged from $22 - $58. Companies have to buy oil to make gasoline. This bill holds companies to the same profits they made when they were spending $22 per barrel. Now that oil costs 5 times as much as that...this is going to translate to very low profits per dollar invested.

So, what do you think the oil companies are going to do?? They have to have a reasonable profit margin or the investors pull the money, the stock plummets, and the company goes under. The result is that the prices are going to be jacked up to a point that this new 25% tax is offset. We will end up paying that 25% tax at the pumps, not the oil companies.

It's a bad idea. It looks like the dems are going to pass the bill and I'm confident that my analysis here is going to be proven in the real world very soon. Here's an advance "thank you" to the dems for saying they're doing one thing (lowering gas prices) when in fact they're doing exactly the opposite.