From WAVE 3 in Louisville comes the latest example of Baron Hill’s craven pandering and outright misleading spin on gas prices, and why he has done nothing but weak political stunts to stop them.
This week WAVE 3 has investigated the disparity in Louisville gas prices compared to the rest of the Commonwealth. As we get results, folks on the other side of the river are just as fed up with rising prices. Indiana 9th District congressman Baron Hill says he has a plan to lower prices. WAVE 3’s Carrie Weil questioned him about it.
“If it was strictly about supply and demand, these economists I’ve talked to tell me the price of gasoline should be around 2.75 cents a gallon,” says Hill.
I’m gratified that Baron recognizes the importance of supply and demand; he has never acknowledged it before.
Perhaps someday he’ll recognize the importance of increasing supply and taking real measures to reduce demand, rather than just increase government red tape, conduct some phony Congressional show-trial investigations, sue some people (lawyer bills that will show up on your tax bill and in the price of gas), and increase taxes (which will also show up in the price of gas).
The 2.75 cents a gallon number is a typo; not even Baron is that stupid.
(Read more after the leap)
Even so, the amount is telling.
In 2006, Baron traveled the district complaining about the price of gasoline.
He even had a person with him dressed up like a gas pump:
Baron promised, if elected, to lower the price of gas.
At that time, gas cost $2.16.
Now, Baron Hill says that it should be $2.75.
What happened to your campaign promise to lower gas prices, Baron?
Why should we be willing to settle for paying more in 2008 than what you promised us when we elected you in 2006?
Hill knows something stinks when it comes to $4.00 gas prices. He will head back to Washington next week pushing a bill he says could lower prices by 20, even 50%. Hill says the change starts with opening the door on some back room business.
“But because these speculators on the commodities exchange are trading paper instead of oil – the futures contracts – they’re artificially driving that price up,” Hill says.
I’m not convinced that vast portions of the price of gasoline are due simply to there being “speculation,” and I’d be wary of government interfering in oil prices.
This being said, I’m glad Baron recognizes the concept of futures contracts.
If we approve more domestic oil drilling, futures contracts will price that increase in domestic drilling into the price of oil long before the oil itself is ever even out of the ground.
I suspect that would have an impact on “speculation” too, and it wouldn’t require more government red tape.
Along with Republicans, this one Democrat thinks more drilling is part of the answer, but the question is where? Hill says there are 68 million acres leased by oil companies in the U.S. and along the continental shelf that are not being drilled.
“We passed a bill last week that would tell the oil companies they if you don’t drill on these lands that they’ve leased they you’re going to lose you lease,” says Hill.
First of all, let’s dispense with this lie that Baron is for more drilling.
He has voted repeatedly against expanded oil drilling.
Second, the oil companies could have ten times as much acreage to drill on and it wouldn’t matter. What matters is whether there is oil under that land or not.
There’s no oil under that 68 million acres, so Baron’s demand that the oil companies drill there is moronic.
They’d get more oil out of sinking a drill into his thick skull.
When we pressed Hill for time frame for action on his proposal, he replied, “Unfortunately the legislative process moves slowly.”
Yes, Congress moved slowly.
It moved slowly when, five years ago, Baron Hill voted twice against expanded drilling in Alaska.
It moved slowly when, seven years ago, Baron Hill voted twice against expanded drilling in Alaska.
It moved slowly when, seven years ago, Baron Hill voted against improved fuel economy standards for cars.
It moved slowly 18 months ago, when Baron entered office on the basis of a campaign promise to lower gas prices.
Since then, gas prices have almost doubled, and Baron Hill has done basically nothing (with the exception of an empty political gimmick or two) to help lower gas prices.
These things do not happen overnight. It takes many years for them to have an effect. And, many years ago, Baron Hill was against the very things that would be helping us right now.
Congress has moved slowly. Baron Hill has moved slower still.
He should be sent back to Seymour; at least there his sloth, inaction, and laziness will not impact our wallets.
“He should be sent back to
SeymourSome Back Corner Office of a DC Law Firm; at least there his sloth, inaction, and laziness will not impact our wallets.”There. Fixed. Did he ever actually live in Seymour?
I am not sure that $2.75 is that far off. I did a quick calculation and think that, say, an $80 per barrel oil price should produce gasoline at about $3.00 per gallon. I speculate (:-) that were we to announce opening up ANWR and the continental shelf that oil would drop somewhere to that range relatively quickly.
People will be quite surprised at how quickly oil prices change once it is believed that we will actually drill. Think about the news reports on days that oil increases a lot–things like Israel threatening to bomb Iran or other political unrest in the 3rd world. Part of the cost drop will be having more of the proven reserves in a politically stable environment, not only the increase in supply.
Not sure about living post college but he actually ahd a good basketball career at Seymour in high school. One of guys in our office played just under him in school and says he was decent. He also says that people down there don’t know much of him or don’t care for him, go figure a dc person who has lost touch with his “home”.
side note – car pooling this week first time ever
A few thoughts here:
1.) Wow…This is somewhere between irritating and infuriating: citing economists with whom he’s supposedly talked.
a.) First of all, from our Jasper debate in 2006, he made clear that “those fancy economists” were not worth listening to (at least on the minimum wage).
b.) He’s had an economist asking him to debate on gas prices and he’s been too busy to debate me. After repeatedly demanding a debate from Sodrel on gas prices in May 2006, you’d think he’d have to debate now.
c.) The number and the argument are patently absurd. If he or “the economist” believed that a speculative oil bubble is that large, then they’d move their investments to take (massive) advantage of this “knowledge”.
2.) I think he’s confused about $2.75/gallon gas. That’s about the price we’d have for gas if the dollar had not been devalued since 2002. President Bush and his Congresses (including Hill and Sodrel) bear considerable responsibility for that.
Baron gets confused easily; I will give him that.
But my point regarding his $2.75 assertion is that it is now what he thinks gasoline should cost, but it is hugely more than the $2.16 it cost when he got sent back to Congress by promising to reduce gas prices.
And yes, whatever else he is, Baron is a native of Seymour.
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