The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation Is "The Pelosi Premium" Planned? » The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation

- The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation - http://blog.heritage.org -

Is “The Pelosi Premium” Planned?

Posted By Conn Carroll On April 21, 2008 @ 12:34 pm In Energy and Environment | 1 Comment

The House Republican Conference released a video last week titled “The Pelosi Premium ^[1]” contrasting then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) 2006 promise to pass a “commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices ^[2]” with the steep rise in gas prices since she took the gavel. According to the video, the price of a gallon of gas has risen from $2.33 in January 2007 to $3.40 in April 2008.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=M5UYNX_XGQA[/youtube]

But let’s say that, as an environmentalist, you want to both 1) drastically reduce carbon emissions ^[3]; but 2) want to pay as little a political price as possible for causing the requisite economic damage a reduction in carbon emissions would bring ^[4]. How could you accomplish both of the goals? Well you might just pass a an energy bill that ^[5]: 1) imposes huge new alternative fuel mandates; 2) allows for no development of new energy sources, and 3) raises taxes that discourage energy exploration and production.

It is not like the House wasn’t repeatedly warned ^[6] that their policies ^[7] would lead to ^[8] higher gas prices ^[9]. So we must entertain the possibility that that is what they meant to do all along.

Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org

URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2008/04/21/is-the-pelosi-premium-planned/

URLs in this post:

[1] The Pelosi Premium: http://republicanleader.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=88948

[2] commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices: http://www.house.gov/pelosi/press/releases/April06/Rubberstamp.html

[3] drastically reduce carbon emissions: http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/31/is-450-ppm-carbon-dioxide-politically-possible-1/

[4] want to pay as little a political price as possible for causing the requisite economic damage a reduction in carbon emissions would bring: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/162738/602

[5] pass a an energy bill that: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1315.cfm

[6] repeatedly warned: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1752.cfm

[7] that their policies: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1736.cfm

[8] would lead to: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1729.cfm

[9] higher gas prices: http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm1721.cfm

Click here to print.