Pelosi: "Natural Gas is a Transition Fuel"

Pelosi on Meet the Press:

Well, the fact of the matter is--and the president knows this--is that if you drill offshore today, you won't have any impact at the price at the pump for 10 years, and then, it's 2 cents. We can move much quickly by releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and having an impact at the pump in 10 days, in 10 days.

Her first point is debatable. Expectation of future supply does play a role in the market today. As for her second point, tapping our oil reserve is hardly a sustainable long-term strategy.

So why is--this is the oil company position, to drill offshore without any comprehensive approach to other aspects of it.

I'm not particularly interested in what the oil company position is, but as far as Republicans go, I've already argued this is a straw-man.

You can have a transition with natural gas. You can have a transition with natural gas. That, that is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels. So, so there is a way to transition this instead of doing more of the same.

How long will it take to retrofit existing gas stations to serve up natural gas? How many cars today can run on natural gas? Even if car makers started making natural gas based cars today, how long would it be until those new vehicles start trickling down to poor Americans? In the meantime, how much will those poor Americans be paying to fill up their old gasoline-fueled vehicles?

Wrong Rating: 3 out of 4 (gross distortion)

Pelosi: "Republicans Just Want to Drill"

Nancy Pelosi says that the problem with the Republican position is that they want to vote on drilling as a single measure. She says if they would present it as part of a comprehensive energy plan, she would allow a vote.



The problem with that is that Democrats said they would not allow an amendment to the energy bill they introduced, which would, in affect, have caused the bill to become a comprehensive bill that included drilling, which Pelosi now says would be acceptable. Huh?

Democrats love to argue that "we can't drill our way out of this problem." In doing so they set up a straw-man, and frankly I'm confused why the Republicans won't call them on it. It's true that drilling alone won't solve the problem. But the same argument can be made for every other energy source. That's why we need a comprehensive plan that includes every viable energy source. The Democrats pride themselves on championing such a plan, but the truth is that the Republican plan is actually more comprehensive, since it includes everything in the democratic plan, plus oil and nuclear energy.

Wrong Rating: 2 out of 4 (misrepresentation) -- Would have been higher except that Republicans don't seem eager to clear up the confusion.