Arts & Ammo

Congress, Sue Thyself

The timidity of the legislative branch of government is partly to blame for the unwarranted boldness of courts. Surely some activist judges reason that, “If Congress won’t do it, I will.” Congress likes to leave the dirty work to others. It speaks in platitudes while delegating the messy business of lawmaking to federal agencies and courts.

The NOPEC bill, passed overwhelmingly this week by House of Representatives, takes this pattern to an extreme. It provides that the Justice Department can sue OPEC over oil prices. Condemnation of the idea is almost universal.

Members wanted to head home with a story to tell the voters about how they were taking bold action. Doing something so transparently stupid, however, highlights Congress’s failure to do something smart. This particular Act of Stupidity has focused the debate precisely on the issue Congress wants to avoid – its own complicity in driving up oil prices.

Coyote Blog seems to have been first in crafting the right response: “Congress, Sue Thyself.”

I am sure, either through scheming or more likely incompetance, that OPEC countries are under-supplying their potential capacity for oil production. But if we want to deem this a crime, who is the biggest criminal? The US is the only country I know of that has, by statute, made illegal the development of enormous domestic reserves. Just last week, Democracts in Congress, in fact the exact same folks sponsoring this bill, voted to continue an effective moratorium on US oil shale development. No country in the world is doing less to develop the most promising oil reserves than is the US. . . . If this passes, I would love to see the US counter-sued for not developing ANWR. Or large areas of the Gulf. Or most of the Pacific coast. Or all of the Atlantic coast. Or our largest-in-the-world oil shale deposits.

Mark Steyn picks up on this theme.

As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, “We can’t drill our way out of this problem.”

Well, maybe not. But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon. More to the point, if the House of Representatives has now declared it “illegal” for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every form of energy production other than the bizarre fetish du jour of federally mandated ethanol production.

Calling the plan “A Derangement of Legislators,” Samizdata writes:

The US House of Representatives have just in effect declared that all foreign governments and businesses must be subject to the wishes of US politicians and their regulations and sell oil at prices that US legislators like. Or else. The sheer absurdity of this is breathtaking. Exactly what sanction were they planning against OPEC? Perhaps not buying their fungible oil? Yeah, that will do the trick.

Times Online sounded one faint note in support of Congress, labeling as “sceptics” who question the measure:

Sceptics claim that Congress should instead open the way for more domestic oil production including drilling in the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and some offshore waters that have been off limits to oil companies for more than 25 years.

Yes, and some people are skeptical about the earth being flat.

Now that Congress has identified the problem as under production, perhaps the public will realize that Congress has made us the most egregious under producer of all.

May 24th, 2008 Posted by Fitzroy | Politics | one comment