It was a headlong rush of the worst kind. It was a process rigged to force hurried decisions based on bad information. It was a process tilted toward the usual energy players while renewable energy companies and the interests of American consumers and taxpayers were overlooked.

Salazar announced he “will extend the public comment period by 180 days, get a report on offshore energy resources, hold regional conferences and expedite rulemaking for offshore renewable energy resources.”

Salazar made it clear that his definition of “energy independence” does not mean a “drill only” future. He rebuked the “oil and gas or nothing” approach of the Bush administration, who ignored the Energy Policy Act of 2005’s mandate to develop regulations for offshore renewables:

I intend to do what the Bush Administration refused to do: build a framework for offshore renewable energy development, so that we incorporate the great potential for wind, wave, and ocean current energy into our offshore energy strategy. The Bush Administration was so intent on opening new areas for oil and gas offshore that it torpedoed offshore renewable energy efforts.

Salazar, who comes from a long line of Colorado ranchers, is famed for wearing a cowboy hat as often as possible. Now it’s clear why he always wears a cowboy hat — Salazar’s the new sheriff in town.

Keep taxes low, cut spending, create jobs with alternative energy including nuclear power plants, including drilling offshore, wind, tide, solar, free us from our sending $700 billion or whatever it is across to countries that don’t like us very much, free up credit.

Watch it:

Even though the term “alternative energy” is vague, under no rational interpretation does the entirely conventional practice of offshore oil drilling qualify. As the ExxonMobil website describes the offshore areas that were formerly covered by the 27-year moratorium lifted this month, those reserves are “conventional“:

The U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that these areas contain an estimated 18 billion barrels of conventional oil and 76.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Perhaps McCain is implying that increased domestic oil production is an “alternative” to imports from countries like Canada, Mexico, and other “countries that don’t like us very much.” This is also nonsense. As has been pointed out many times and in many places, “crude oil production could be increased at most between 1 and 3 million barrels per day, on top of the 5 million barrels a year already produced domestically. The United States currently consumes about 20 million barrels annually, so an expansion of domestic drilling would make barely a dent in that amount unless consumption also is reduced.”

In the third and final presidential debate on October 15, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said one of his goals is that “we become energy independent and we will create millions of jobs in America.”

However, he conclusively demonstrated that he advocates policies that will achieve neither “energy independence” nor “millions of jobs.”

Plank #1: Nukes, Baby, Nukes

Sen. McCain said that to achieve “energy independence…. We have to have nuclear power.”

Building 100 new nuclear plants, as he has proposed, will do nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Nuclear power generates approximately 20% of U.S. electricity, while oil produces less than 2%, and only 2% of oil use goes to producing electricity.

Nuclear power will not lead to energy independence because the U.S. must import over 90% of its uranium, with nearly one-third coming from Russia. If we double the number of nuclear plants, as McCain has called for, we would become even more dependent on countries that, in McCain’s words, “don’t like us very much.”

Plank #2: Continued Oil Dependence
Debate moderator Bob Schieffer asked Sen. McCain to “give us a number, a specific number of how much you believe we can reduce our foreign oil imports during your first term?”

McCain responded that “for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil….We can easily, within seven, eight, ten years…eliminate our dependence” on oil from these places.

Currently, the U.S. imports a total of 3.5 million barrels per day – or one-third of total imports – from the Persian Gulf and Venezuela. The new 35 mile per gallon fuel economy will save 1.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2020. McCain has long opposed increasing fuel economy standards.

Sen. McCain proposed measures to achieve independence including “nuclear power, with wind, tide, solar, natural gas, with development of flex fuel [vehicles], hybrid [vehicles], clean coal technology.”

Nuclear power, wind, tide, solar, and natural gas would produce electricity, and reduce coal, not oil, use. There are already 4.5 million flex fuel vehicles on the road, but nearly all of them use gasoline rather than 85% ethanol (E85) because the latter is only sold at one percent of service stations.

There are only 186,000 hybrid cars out of 200 million U.S. autos. Plug-in electric hybrid vehicles could lead to cars that get 100+ miles per gallon, but none will be commercially available until 2010. And Sen. McCain opposed the renewable tax package that included consumer incentives to buy super efficient cars.

Advanced coal technology that would enable power plants to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions underground is a promising technology that is at least 10 years away from commercial availability. If it works, it will enable power plants to burn coal with far fewer greenhouse gas emissions, but will have no impact on oil use.

In short, McCain’s plan will not achieve his goal after two terms, let alone one.

Plank #3: Opposing Renewables Before He Supported them.

Sen. McCain said that other elements of his plan would include “It’s wind, tide, solar, natural gas, nuclear, off-shore drilling.”

He repeatedly voted against a requirement that utilities generate more of their power from wind and solar. He also opposed the extension of tax incentives for renewables and efficiency measures.

Expansion of offshore oil drilling into to the Outer Continental Shelf “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices,” according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Plank #4: No New Jobs

He asserts his energy plan “will create millions of jobs — millions of jobs in America.”

An energy plan based on expansion of offshore oil drilling to areas three miles off of our coasts will create far fewer jobs than investments in renewables and efficiency. The Center for American Progress’s Green Recovery report found that an investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures would create four times more jobs compared to the same investment in offshore oil drilling.

Plank #5: Support for Big Oil

During the debate, Sen. McCain criticized those who supported the Energy Policy Act of 2005 because “it was full of goodies for the oil companies that I opposed.” However, he opposed proposals to remove these subsidies for big oil.

Sen. McCain’s economic plan would actually increase “goodies for the oil companies” because it would slash taxes for the largest US oil companies by $4 billion, including reducing ExxonMobil’s tax tab by over $1 billion.

Plank #6: No Biofuels

When asked about spending cuts, Sen. McCain proudly said that he would cut “a number of subsidies for ethanol….I oppose subsidies for ethanol because I thought it distorted the market and created inflation.”

Corn based ethanol will displace half a million barrels of oil daily in 2008. Biofuels could displace 2.5 million barrels of oil daily by 2022. The next generation of “cellulosic biofuels” made from switch grass, farm waste, wood chips or other biomass will be much less energy intensive to produce than corn ethanol. Subsidies would help speed the commercialization of this replacement for oil.

But saying it’s so don’t make it so. Normal drilling operations cause significant pollution, environmental damage, and of course have tremendous global warming impacts. And frequent oil spills caused by global-warming-fueled storms mean that drilling is anything but “environmentally friendly.”

A new analysis by the Associated Press shows that Hurricane Ike “destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines,” resulting in: “At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marches, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas.” The Coast Guard has responded to more than 3,000 pollution reports. “At times, a new spill or release was reported to the Coast Guard every five minutes to 10 minutes.”

Ike’s enormously destructive wreckage adds further proof that conservatives’ claims regarding the safety of offshore oil drilling are totally false. With the “drill, baby, drill” chant, conservatives repeatedly insisted that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita “didn’t spill a drop” of oil. Even the Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman, claimed that during Katrina and Rita, “there was not one case where we had a situation with oil or gas being spilled in the environment.” This is a lie: Those hurricanes caused 595 different oil spills, totalling 9 million gallons.

Sadly, the clear evidence of Ike’s environmental damage comes just days after House progressives caved to conservative pressure and allowed the ban on offshore oil drilling to expire, potentially clearing the way for hundreds of new rigs to be built — and for just as many opportunities for new oil spills to be created. As Palin might say, “Spill, baby, spill!“

But the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler points out that “various government agencies” have concluded that “crude oil production could be increased at most between 1 and 3 million barrels per day, on top of the 5 million barrels a year already produced domestically. The United States currently consumes about 20 million barrels annually, so an expansion of domestic drilling would make barely a dent in that amount unless consumption also is reduced.”

A lot of people talk about loving the earth. But how many of them actually penetrate it?

Watch it:

The parody promotional video Colbert airs in this segment is from Prescott Oil, part of the fictional Prescott Group corporate conglomerate that Colbert has used to skewer pharmaceutical industries.

The fossil-fuel industry is on track to spend one billion dollars this year propagandizing oil, coal and natural gas. As the Public Campaign Action Fund found, “In the first half of 2008, the major industry players, American Petroleum Institute, BP, Chevron Texaco, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Hess Corporation, and Royal Dutch Shell, spent $92.2 million on broadcast and cable advertising; $14.9 million on radio advertising; $57.5 million on print advertising in magazines and newspapers; $5.3 million on Internet advertising; and $4.0 million on other media.”

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action is this Saturday, September 27. Thousands of Americans will be calling for investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and job training for people who are ready to get to work building a more just and sustainable economy.

Newt Gingrich’s “Solutions Day” is this Saturday, September 27. He’ll be calling for more drilling, privatizing health care and Social Security, and slashing corporate taxes.

Who will you join this weekend?

UPDATE: Adi at 1Sky reports: “We’re up to 558 events in all 50 states!” At SolveClimate, David Sassoon writes: “And the coalition now has a secret weapon: Patrick, and his caulk gun. Shock and Awe has met its match.”

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Koch Industries front group formerly run by Koch lobbyist Nancy Pfotenhauer, spent all of August attacking “Speaker Pelosi’s decision to adjourn for a five-week recess without allowing a vote on whether to expand production of American oil, natural gas or shale.” Their conservative allies in Congress staged protests on the House floor attacking Pelosi as a “dictator” who wouldn’t allow a vote.

When Congress returned to session, Pelosi called the conservative bluff. She held votes on a Democratic package that expanded production of oil, natural gas, and oil shale and a Republican package that expanded production of oil, natural gas, and oil shale. The Democratic package passed.

If AFP were honest in the slightest about their call to action, they would now be calling on the U.S. Senate to pass the House bill with all speed. But of course they are not. The House package is a genuine “all of the above” bill that would lower energy costs and create jobs. It rolls back subsidies for oil companies to support renewable energy, establishes a framework for new oil leasing, and establishes a national renewable energy standard. All of these elements are anathema to the oil and gas industry that funds front groups like AFP and their conservative allies. So what is a polluter propagandist to do? Attack the do-something Congress:

Other liberal leaders are trying to raise taxes on oil companies (which will mean higher prices at the pump!)

Expanding domestic energy production by getting at untapped U.S. resources is the key to lowering prices at the pump — so use the box below to contact your lawmaker today and tell them to DO NOTHING. That’s right. Tell your lawmaker that doing nothing is the right thing to do for American energy consumers.

AFP, in flipping from attacking liberals for doing nothing to demanding that they do nothing, doesn’t seem to have a very strong irony radar. Last month, they had to cancel a global warming denial meeting in Florida because of Tropical Storm Fay.

For those of us who actually want a do-something Congress, join Green Jobs Now and call on Congress for a green recovery.

Evidently, Al Gore and the We Campaign have had enough. They’ve released a new ad, which they hope to run on national television, directly attacking industry propaganda and making reference to the recent sex, drugs, and oil scandal rocking the Bush administration.

Watch it:

The policy goal underlying the “Drill, Baby, Drill” message — lifting decades-old protections on America’s lands and waters — would help only Big Oil’s already obscene profits. But the primary political goal has been to prevent Congress from enacting genuine change, by killing climate legislation, blocking renewable energy investments and standards like those called for by the We Campaign, demonizing biofuels, and corrupting the media — drilling us deeper into the pollution economy just when we need to build our way out.

Today, Center for American Progress Action Fund fellow Bracken Hendricks is testifying before the House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming about the Center’s plan for a Green Recovery. You can watch watch the webcast live at 1:30 pm.

The Green Jobs Now Day of Action, on September 27, is now little more than a week away.

Transcript:

The solution to our climate crisis seems simple: Repower America with wind and solar. End our dependence on foreign oil. A stronger economy.

So why are we still stuck with dirty and expensive energy? Because Big Oil spends hundreds of millions of dollars to block clean energy. Lobbyists, ads, even scandals. All to increase their profits, while America suffers. Breaking big oil’s lock on our government … Now that’s change.

We’re the American people and we approve this message.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the news media has mindlessly amplified that lie. The hundreds of broadcasts on “proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the United States” almost completely ignored the EIA report:

CNN — whose news coverage is sponsored by the coal and oil industry — was particularly egregious, talking about the drill-drill-drill agenda 139 times but mentioning the EIA’s debunk only once on August 7 (actually, I was able to find one other mention that same day).

From the American News Project comes a telling video report on how conservatives are “just lying to the American public” by promising lower gas prices from expanded drilling. Climate Progress’s Joe Romm is interviewed, and he explains the dirty money connection:

It is conservatives who get ad campaigns and who get contributions from the oil companies. The oil companies get bigger profits when oil prices are high. So it is not surprising that conservatives have for twenty-five years opposed higher fuel economy standards. And it is not surprising that conservatives have steadfastly opposed alternative energy and renewable energy. They don’t want people to get off of fossil fuels and traditional energy because conservatives get paid by those companies.

Digg It!

Watch it:

During the Republican National Convention, delegates repeatedly demonstrated their obsession with offshore oil drilling by chanting “drill, baby, drill!” It turns out they were literally describing the relationship between Department of Interior royalty collectors and the oil industry.

Multiple reports released on September 10 by the Department of Interior Inspector General found that the Mineral Management Service officials responsible for collecting royalties from oil and gas producers are accused of accepting gifts, trips, and special favors from producers. The report described “A culture of ethical failure… [and] a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity.” These government overseers also abused alcohol and cocaine with officials from energy companies that they were supposed to collect royalties from, and “had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The MMS employees are responsible for collecting royalties from producers for oil and gas produced on public lands, which can be paid in cash or “royalty in kind.” The latter allows the producer to pay its royalties by delivering oil and gas to the federal government, which is either stored in government reserves or sold on the open market. The total royalty tab is about $10 billion annually, and is one of the largest sources of federal revenue aside from taxes.

The DOI Inspector General previously found that the Department under collected billions of dollars of revenue owed the U.S. taxpayer from oil companies that produce and sell oil and gas from public lands and waters. The IG found that DOI provides mediocre oversight of oil and gas companies to ensure that they are paying the full royalties owed to the U.S. treasury. The result was billions of dollars of uncollected royalties owed to the federal government. These officials, in effect, helped subsidize oil companies already engorged with record profits that averaged $236 per driver over the past year.

This “sex, drugs, and oil” agency is the same one that would oversee the expansion of offshore oil drilling into protected ocean areas. No wonder coastal businesses that depend on clean beaches and ocean are so worried about the potential for harm from expansion of offshore oil drilling from Malibu to Miami to Maine. The federal watchdogs are in bed with the oil companies that they are supposed to oversee.

Newt’s book oozes with false sympathy for working Americans:

The suffering of Americans due to high energy prices is bad enough. But there’s more: powerful people believe that Americans — everyday folks just trying to earn a living, feed their families, and help others — are actually the root cause of the energy crisis. These influential people — many of them the very same individuals who helped create the energy crisis in the first place — have little compassion for the suffering of their fellow countrymen.

Who are the “influential people” who “helped create the energy crisis in the first place” Gingrich and Haley blame? Is it Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich himself, or others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and prevented change while American families suffered?

Nope! The villians in Newtland are “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians.”

The McCain campaign just released an ad claiming that Gov. Palin (R-AK) “took on Big Oil.”

Watch it:

In fact, Palin is a champion for Big Oil. And in Sen. McCain’s acceptance speech tonight, he will repeat the lines used by Big Oil in their own public relations campaigns:

– “Energy independence” by drilling everywhere, even in protected places.

– Support for more alternative energy without effective commitments.

– Eventual reduction in global warming pollution.

He repeatedly made these points over the past two plus months.

This speech will attempt to obscure the facts that tell the real story of a McCain-Palin Administration:

– Denial of science. When asked about global warming, his running mate, Gov. Palin, said, “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

– Opposition to clean energy. McCain missed all eight critical clean energy votes over the past year and voted against a renewable electricity standard four times since 2002.

– False promises. Drilling everywhere will not reduce oil or gasoline prices. The Department of Energy determined that drilling in the outer continental shelf “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices.”

– Big Oil subsidies. McCain would provide $39 billion in new and existing subsidies and handouts to big oil over the next five years.

– Choosing Big Oil before clean energy. McCain announced that he would have cast the deciding vote against the extension of tax incentives for wind, solar, and efficiency in December 2007 and February 2008. That bill would have eliminated $13 billion in existing tax breaks for big oil.

– Fueled by Big Oil. McCain’s campaign is run by oil industry lobbyists, and has taken over $1.5 million from the oil industry.

So McCain’s clean energy flourishes tonight are all pomp but no circumstance. His record shows that he supports the Big Oil agenda along with the Bush Administration and Governor Palin. His “energy independence” proposals would only yield more profits for Big Oil, and his mention of clean alternative energy is nothing more than a talking point.

Well, we launched at American Solutions a petition drive called “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” to make the obvious point that if you used America’s energy resources and you didn’t have to buy oil from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia it’d be a lot less expensive.

Gingrich’s “obvious point” is an obvious lie. The United States has only two percent of the world’s oil and gas reserves but uses 24 percent of production. Under Bush, domestic drilling has surged — but so have oil prices. The only sufficient American energy resources to get off foreign oil are efficiency, wind, solar, and other unlimited, renewable energy.

He then outlined the next roll-out of his propaganda campaign, building on the current petition drive and YouTube contest with a book release on September 22 and a movie release coinciding with “Solution Day” on September 27.

Watch it:

The book, Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less, blames “anti-energy, left-leaning politicians” for the energy crisis, absolving Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, Enron, Exxon Mobil, Peabody Coal, Tom DeLay, John McCain, hedge-fund speculators, and others in the conservative elite who have profited from skyrocketing energy prices and blocked reform while the rest of us suffer.

The movie, We Have The Power, extols the virtues of nuclear power in a visit to Three Mile Island and stars Newt’s wife Callista as she talks with industry lobbyists.

Gingrich’s false “Solution Day” coincides with the Green Jobs Now Day of Action. Go to the website — GreenJobsNow.com — to fight for real solutions, not more pollution.

I know that Congress has been on recess for a while, but this issue hasn’t gone away. And, uh, this storm should not cause members of Congress say well, we don’t need to address our energy independence. It ought to cause the Congress to step up their need to address our dependence on foreign oil. And one place to do so is to give us a chance to explore in environmentally friendly ways on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Watch it:

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were both floored by Bush’s decision “to use another hurricane in Louisiana to promote offshore drilling at this point,” after he “performed so poorly during Hurricane Katrina.”

Bush’s tasteless politicization of an ongoing civil emergency repeated tired right-wing talking points. As Van Jones told the Wonk Room last week, Bush is selling false solutions and more pollution:

Let’s be very clear. Number one: There’s no such thing as American oil any more. These are multinational corporations. If you let multinational corporations drill all this oil, they’re going to sell it to the highest bidder, whether it’s China, or India, it doesn’t matter. Why would we throw away America’s beauty chasing the lost drops of oil, so multinational corporations can sell it to India and China?

And people also got to remember, we didn’t stop this as an environmental issue. We didn’t stop offshore drilling for the duckies and the fishies. We stopped it because coastline communities were suffering. Because the property owners, the children who live in those coastline communities — not when there were oil spills — but every day, when your child goes out to swim, he comes back covered in oil, you have to use gasoline to get the oil off your child. That was happening coast to coast

Transcript:

BRZEZINSKI: Okay, that was President Bush giving reporters an update on the situation to the hurricane. And nicely weaving in a little pitch for off-shore oil drilling!

SCARBOROUGH: I was going to say, Mika. Anybody, anybody that thought this would be the warm and fuzzy George Bush, who would have a tear in his eye and say, “You know, maybe we didn’t have everything right last time, but this time we are worried about the Americans who have,” — no, he turned it around, “Drill now.”

BRZEZINSKI: Drill, drill, drill.

SCARBOROUGH: Drill here, drill now.

BRZEZINSKI: But in all seriousness, at the top of the hour we’ll be hearing from the director of homeland security as well as governor Bobby Jindal.

…

SCARBOROUGH: I’ve got to agree with the mayor. For this president, that performed so poorly during Hurricane Katrina to use another hurricane in Louisiana to promote offshore drilling at this point…

BRZEZINSKI: (Laughing) It was like going from music to news to the top of the hour.

SCARBOROUGH: You know who was screaming the loudest?

BRZEZINSKI: Who?

SCARBOROUGH: The McCain campaign …

BRZEZINSKI: (Sighing) Ohhh…

SCARBOROUGH: …while they were watching the president. “Just stop, just stop!” Not warm and fuzzy.

This panel of three highly powerful individuals from the environmental, progressive, and conservative energy industry communities represented a remarkable confluence of priorities, in recognizing the energy crisis and the need to get off oil. As Carl Pope described:

If our politics was even vaguely functional, anything that all three of us agree on would have happened long ago. We have some very deep profound political problems. Our politics are broken.

Pickens himself, a highly influential fundraiser for right-wing politicians, described how his money has gotten him access in Washington but that he had learned that his contributions don’t translate to policy. He expressed his enthusiasm for the ability of the Pickens Plan campaign to reach millions on the Internet and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people. He argued, “I’m not doing this to make money. My entire estate will go to charity when I go. We are now importing almost 70 percent of our oil. It’s too much. We’re not talking about my generation — we can make it to the finish line.”

They also aired for the audience a fifteen-second spot that was rejected by NBC censors, because, according to Pickens, the network wanted him to prove that “we’re not doing a thing here” on energy policy. Watch the rejected ad:

Pope explained what Newt Gingrich and other conservatives are really trying to do with their drill-drill-drill agenda, when they know that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium won’t deliver new oil to this country.

What is it about? It’s about distracting us from the conversation we ought to be having. As long as we’re talking about drill drill drill, it distracts Americans from the fact there’s a chasm between the two candidates. It’s a huge headfake by Karl Rove.

At the end of the conversation, Podesta and Pickens talked about their political differences. Pickens — who helped sponsor the Big Tent — admitted he is inclined to defend oil companies, who work for their shareholders and are run by his friends. When challenged by Podesta for having given significant contributions to “the gang on Capitol Hill who have been blocking the renewable production tax credit,” Pickens, with resignation apparent in his face, said, “I grind on them . . . I don’t have the time.” He argued that he is now trying to act on behalf of the American people, to avoid being partisan, to move past the old politics — the politics that he has spent millions to sustain.

All three clearly agreed that it is time for not just change in energy policy, but change in our politics — change, as Van Jones told the Wonk Room this week, that will lift people up instead of continuing to tear this country down.

UPDATE: Joe Romm has an interview with Pickens at Salon and further commentary at Climate Progress:

Talking to him it is clear he is very genuinely concerned about the impoverishment we face on our current laissez-faire energy path — a $10 trillion transfer of wealth from Americans to rest of the world over the next decade, ending with $300 a barrel oil. But I simply couldn’t get him to acknowledge that or all his claims that his proposal is nonpartisan, it is his fellow conservatives who stand in the way of achieving his dream.

We estimate that the coal and oil industries spent an astounding $427.2 million over the first six months of 2008 to influence public opinion and public policy.

These industries are on track to spend about a billion dollars influencing energy policy this year, with their “clean coal” and “drill drill drill” messaging. They are supporting pollution-friendly candidates and spreading false doubt about the seriousness of global warming.

This total includes the $12.2 million dollars spent in six months by Newt Gingrich’s billionaire-and-coal-funded 527 corporation, American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF), on its “Drill Here, Drill Now” campaign, and the $40 million that coal industry front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (now part of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity) pledged to spend influencing the public. It also includes John McCain’s million-dollar haul from the oil and gas industry.

The Public Campaign Action Fund’s estimate of $427.2 million fails to include the expenditures of pollution-agenda front groups that are “organized under sections of the Internal Revenue Code that do not require the public disclosure of their spending.” These groups include the likes of:

• Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth
• American Council for Capital Formation
• American Energy Alliance
• American Enterprise Institute
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Future Fund
• Business & Media Institute
• Coalition for Affordable American Energy
• Competitive Enterprise Institute
• FreedomWorks
• Heartland Institute
• Institute for Energy Research
• National Association of Manufacturers
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Therefore the Public Campaign’s estimate is rather conservative.

Ft. Myers and West Palm Beach Town Hall Meetings Rescheduled

The August 19th Ft. Myers town hall and August 21st West Palm Beach town hall will be rescheduled as a result of Tropical Storm Fay. We apologize for any inconvenience.

AFP is a front group for the right-wing pollution company Koch Industries, with an agenda of attacking “global warming alarmism” and promoting increased offshore drilling.

Somehow I doubt they planned to discuss how global warming intensifies tropical storms and threatens Florida’s coasts, nor how tropical storms and offshore drilling are a disastrous combination.

But Republicans have a golden opportunity here to turn the tables back on the Democrats. All they have to do is give a basic economics lesson every chance they get. The American people aren’t stupid; they will get it. The lesson is this:

If the Democrats really wanted to cut the profits of Big Oil, they would vote to…increase the supply of oil! Oil company profits are so high because the price of oil is so high. The price is so high because demand is so much higher than supply. Allowing oil companies to drill for more oil will increase supply, which will lower prices, which will lower oil company profits!

By this logic, the CEOs of oil companies should be fired for violating their fiduciary duty to their shareholders, since they are the ones leading the call for expanded drilling:

Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said it’s “nonsensical” to oppose lifting domestic drilling moratoria.

Shell CEO John Hofmeister said the offshore moratorium “has denied U.S. oil companies the opportunity to produce more hydrocarbons.”

ConocoPhillips CEO James Mulva called for lifting the offshore moratorium, saying, “We cannot just wish fossil fuels away.”

Chevron CEO David O’Reilly said Bush should have “lifted the moratorium with a presidential order.”

Cline’s argument is embarrassingly nonsensical. If we pretended for a minute that proven U.S. oil reserves could magically be multiplied overnight by ten times to match U.S. demand, the money flowing into the coffers of oil companies wouldn’t change, since their profits are a product of both price and production. The decrease in price would be balanced by the increase in production. That’s the “basic economics lesson.”

Of course, even if the moratoria were lifted today, and even if oil companies could fast-track exploration and drilling, the oil found would only change U.S. production by a few percent — not 100, 1,000 or 10,000 percent — and would have little to no impact on oil prices.

The oil companies and those paid to promote their agenda are the only ones who would benefit from lifting the moratoria. Big Oil will use the additional leases to pad their inventories, and in decades sell the oil on the global market. And the oil-fueled right wing will continue to peddle their propaganda.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich (ASWF) also thinks oil CEOs should be fired:

For the first time, there will a beneficiary of the ASWF propaganda campaign who isn’t a right-wing millionaire or oil executive. But checking the contest details reveals the meager prize:

The contest winner will receive a $2,500 gift card, or a series of gift cards totaling $2,500 from a major gasoline provider in the United States.

So the prize is really $2,500 that goes to an oil company. Is it even, as Newt promises, worth “free gasoline for an entire year”? Probably not.

The average American’s gas bill in 2006 was $2,227 — when gas was $2.58 a gallon. But a gallon of gas is now $3.80, a nearly 50% increase. ASWF’s $2,500 gas card won’t pay for a year of gas unless prices fall back to $3 a gallon — or the winner cuts back driving significantly. If gas stays at $4 per gallon in 2009, the average household will be looking at a bill of about $3,500 $3,300. So Newt’s propaganda contest is really more likely to turn out to be “Drill Here, Drill Now, Drive Less” for its one “winner.”

Just like the hoax that offshore drilling would help Americans pay less at the pump, or the absurd claim that conservative propaganda has affected the price of oil, even Gingrich’s YouTube contest is built on cheap promises. If Newt wanted to offer a genuine prize, he’d give away a Tesla electric sportscar. If Newt actually cared about Americans, he’d support relief for every driver, such as a “reliefbate” paid for by closing oil subsidy loopholes or by implementing a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

Of course, filling the gas tank isn’t an issue for the backers of ASWF’s agenda. It takes Sheldon Adelson, the right-wing kingpin who’s given ASWF more than $3 million, less than ten seconds to make $2500 from his Chinese casinos, and it takes Exxon Mobil less than two seconds.

Digg it!

UPDATE: $4 gas, as kiweagle notes in the comments, translates to an average gas bill of approximately $3,300 a year. $4.30 gas gives a gas bill of approximately $3,500 a year.