House GOP Begins Second Full Week of Historic Nationwide Gas Prices Protest
Boehner: "We're Going to Continue to Be Here, Day After Day, Until the Speaker Calls Us Back"Washington, Aug 11 - What began 10 days ago as a spontaneous uprising on the floor of the U.S. House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent Congress home for a five-week break without allowing a vote on more American energy to lower gas prices has now become an unprecedented nationwide protest. Today, the House Republican-led revolt against the Majority’s decision to defy the will of the American people, who solidly support more American energy production to lower gas prices, enters its second full week – and shows no signs of slowing down. The Washington Times reports this morning on the ongoing gas prices protest:
“House Republicans say they will continue to interrupt their summer break this week to hold daily protests at the Capitol in their ongoing push to expand domestic oil drilling, insisting the ‘American people are with us.’ My constituents are wondering, Why isn’t the Congress back in session, dealing with the energy crisis?’” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said at a Republican news conference Friday outside the House chamber.”
“‘We’re here, and we’re going to continue to be here, day after day, until the speaker calls us back, because that’s what our constituents are demanding,’ he said.”
In a Roll Call story titled “Boehner: GOP Has Pelosi on the Run,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) – one of the leaders of the nationwide uprising – shares Boehner’s view that the American people stand with House Republicans in demanding more American-made energy and lower gas prices:
"The American people are with us,’ said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), one of the organizers of the protest that has attracted 87 Members so far. ‘They are with House Republicans who want to see the Congress come back to work and give the bipartisan majority of this House ... a simple vote on the floor.’”Indeed, poll after poll reinforces the American people’s strong support for more environmentally-safe drilling for oil and gas on remote federal lands and far off our shores – part of the “all of the above” energy strategy House Republicans are promoting on the House floor and in communities all across the country. Yesterday’s Washington Post highlighted the public’s support for the very reforms Speaker Pelosi has blocked from coming to the House floor for a simple up-or-down vote:
“A new national poll shows broad public support for government action in the face of $4-a-gallon gas and other energy concerns, giving Republicans a rare opening to go on the offensive against congressional Democrats and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).”
“Nearly two-thirds of Americans now put a priority on ‘finding new sources of energy’ over improving conservation – a significant shift since 2001 – and majorities support all of the five potential federal initiatives tested in a new ABC News poll…”
“Overall, 63 percent want the federal government to lift its embargo on new drilling in U.S. coastal waters. Nearly eight in 10 Republicans and seven in 10 independents back the idea, as do just over half of Democrats in the poll conducted in partnership with Stanford University and Planet Green.”
As the nationwide gas prices protest rolls into its second full week, it has become increasingly clear just how out-of-touch Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic leadership team is on the number one issue on the minds of the American people. How much longer will the Speaker deny House Republicans – and the solid majority of the American people they are speaking for in this historic revolt – a vote to increase production of American energy to help bring down the price at the pump?
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