RUSH: Last night and today, we finally have an issue, an issue that represents a goal for the United States of America: energy independence, drilling for our own oil and our own natural gas. Finally, the president of the United States is willing to lead the charge on this. I know you can say, ‘Yeah, where has he been the last seven years?’ He actually has proposed drilling in ANWR. He hasn’t gone all the way, but he finally has now. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and say, ‘Yeah, where’s this been?’ We finally have, ladies and gentlemen, an issue that can rally people — a simple issue that’s easy to understand. This is easy to understand as the House Bank scandal was easy to understand. We don’t have to explain the falling dollar, or why it’s happening and how to get the dollar back up We don’t have to explain.
All we have to do is say: ‘Four dollar gasoline, $4.10 gasoline, $135 per barrel of oil, supply and demand.’ Everybody knows that we are not bringing up as much as we have and if we brought more of our own up, the very people that are demanding energy independence are standing in the way of it… It’s easy to understand. Case has been made. This is the time, just like it was during the illegal immigration debate, for elected officials in Washington to hear from you about what you think. We already have the Gallup showing 67% of the American people want to start drilling. Last night, the brilliant Barack Obama said there is no way offshore drilling will lower prices right now. The Democrat Party is digging in and they are going to oppose this. They’re going to oppose energy independence; they’re going to oppose advancing technology.
They’re going to oppose the economic growth of the country. They’re going to oppose your prosperity. They’re going to oppose all of that by standing in the way of this. Now, let’s take this statement made by Obama: No way offshore drilling will lower prices right now. Wow, praise the sky! What brilliance! The messiah has spoken. Delivered with the authority of a great leader: There’s no way offshore drilling will lower prices right now. A tingle goes up the leg of the Drive-By Media. But wait a second, wait a second. You know what, folks? There’s no way alternative energy will lower prices ‘right now.’ There’s no way CAFE standards on automobile mileage will lower prices ‘right now.’ There’s no way an excess profit tax on oil companies will lower prices ‘right now.’ Does he even know what he’s talking about? Who’s putting the words in this puppet’s mouth?
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RUSH: Here’s the president from the Rose Garden this morning announcing his change of heart on offshore drilling.
THE PRESIDENT: In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil, and that means we need to increase supply, especially here at home. So my administration has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production. Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal, and now Americans are paying the price at the pump for this obstruction. Congress must face a hard reality: Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today’s painful levels or even higher, our nation must produce more oil, and we must start now.
RUSH: He nailed it. This is exactly what the Democrats are going to do. Congress is willing to accept gas prices at today’s painful levels. They are more than happy to accept gas prices at today’s painful levels. And it’s two reasons. One, pure politics. And I’m not prioritizing these in any order. Pure politics. I mean, the angrier the voting population is over the price of gasoline and the related economic fallout, the greater the odds the Democrats think that they can get elected president. So it goes back to what we’ve always said: What’s bad for America is great for the Democrats. What’s great for America is bad for the Democrats. So they’re going to dig in, they’ve already started to dig in to oppose this. They want you in pain, ’cause they want your anger directed at the administration, therefore you’ll want change, which is the Democrats. Here’s another sound bite from the president.
THE PRESIDENT: First, we should expand American oil production by increasing access to the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS. Second, we should expand oil production by tapping into the extraordinary potential of oil shale. Third, we should expand oil production by permitting exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. And finally, we need to expand and enhance our refining capacity. Refineries are the critical link between crude oil and the gasoline and diesel fuel that drivers put in their tanks.
RUSH: See how easy this is? There are people like me and you, ladies and gentlemen, who have been desperately wanting this to become not only our movement’s policy, but our country’s policy for years. Every time we have heard Democrats whine and moan about energy dependence, every time prices of gasoline have spiked and they do hearings on windfall profits of Big Oil, there’s a solution to this. Then we hear Obama say, ‘No drilling for oil, why, that’s just sticking to the failed policies of the past.’ The failed policies of the past! What? The discovery and the drilling and the extraction, refining, and the distribution of petroleum products is a failed policy of the past? What, pray tell, is his new policy of the future? Nothing that’s going to pay off any time soon. He sits there and says, ‘Well, drilling ain’t going to reduce prices any time soon, not right now.’ Nothing that these people are proposing will, either.
You could put all those stupid compact fluorescent lightbulbs you can find in your house, it’s not going to produce any more energy and it’s not going to reduce the price of gasoline. And you can unplug your cell phone charger and your toaster and computer and whatever else. You could put solar panels on your lawn mower. You could put solar panels on your house. You could put solar panels on the roof of your hybrid; it isn’t going to make gasoline any cheaper. You can put windmills wherever you don’t want them. It ain’t going to make gasoline any cheaper. There is no substitute for oil, and there isn’t going to be any time soon. So this whole notion that we’re not going to be able to lower the price any time soon by drilling, not gonna get lower prices right now, nothing else that the people are proposing will do so, either. One more from the president and then Senator McCain will chime in.
THE PRESIDENT: I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past.
RUSH: Some?
THE PRESIDENT: Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I asked them to reconsider their positions.
RUSH: Ha.
THE PRESIDENT: If congressional leaders leave for their Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. Americans will rightly ask how high gas prices have to rise before the Democrat-controlled Congress will do something about it.
RUSH: Whatever the price is on January 20th next year, when Obama is elected president is when they’ll start caring about it, or inaugurated, if he is. The Democrats have already dug in. They do have a reply to this. They’ve got their talking points and they’re lying through their teeth about it. And you may have heard it. Bill Nelson of Florida, one of, ahem, my senators, is out there saying that, (paraphrasing) ‘Hey, the federal government’s already leased a whole bunch of land to the big oil companies; they’re not even using it.’ It’s such a smoke screen, the number of years left on these leases is very few, and the whole thing is a lie anyway. I have the figures to prove it. We’ll get to this as it all unfolds here before your very eyes and ears. Yesterday in Houston, McCain went down to talk to Big Oil execs. He gave a speech on energy and conservation. Here is the first of two portions.
MCCAIN: We have proven oil reserves of at least 21 billion barrels in the United States, but a broad federal moratorium stands in the way of energy exploration and production, and I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and put our own reserves to use. (cheers and applause)
RUSH: All right, all right, all right, drill here, drill now, pay less. Drill here. Drill now. Pay less. Folks, this is the issue. It’s not the equivalent of going to the moon, but it is close. This is a goal, a national goal, to become energy independent. We have the crude. We have the supply. We have it. We just have to go get it. And you don’t get it by sitting around waiting. You gotta take the first step. In building anything, it takes time. So this is something to rally the people behind. We’ve got the tipping point here, four dollar a gallon gasoline, and it’s going to be great because the Democrats are going to oppose this. They’re going to stand in the way of it. They’re going to be easy to caricature. It will be easy to explain to people. This is not a complicated issue at all. Here’s the second McCain bite.
MCCAIN: He wants a windfall profits tax on oil. (crowd booing) To go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. (crowd booing) My friends, if the plan sounds familiar, it’s because that was President Jimmy Carter’s big idea, too. (crowd booing) And a lot of good it did us.
RUSH: He’s right about that. He’s ripping off my Jimmy Carter line. I don’t care. It’s accurate, it’s correct, and he’s telling the truth about Obama. He wants to raise taxes on all these things. The more you tax an activity, the less of that activity you get. It’s just that simple, proven by years and years and years of human existence. Here is Obama. This is aboard his campaign plane, he’s trying to paint McCain here as a flip-flopper while he has on his staff the original flip-flopper, John Kerry, who served in Vietnam. Here’s Obama, first of two.
OBAMA: This is yet another reversal by John McCain in terms of his earlier positions, and I think we could set up an interesting debate between John McCain 2000 and John McCain 2008.
RUSH: Let me help out here, Senator Obama. If you say no to offshore drilling or drilling in ANWR when oil is at $20 or $30 a barrel, and then you change your mind and say yes to offshore drilling when oil is $140 a barrel, sir, that’s not a flip-flop. That’s just common sense. It’s like John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist, was asked, ‘Sir, how come you’ve changed your mind?’ He said, ‘Sir, when the facts change, I change my mind.’ The facts have changed here. Oil is no longer $30 a barrel, it’s $140. It’s now profitable to get the shale oil the president was talking about. This is not a flip-flop. What we have here, the ‘No-Drill Democrats’ — and that’s a good name for these, the No-Drill Democrats, unless a waitress is involved — are on a crash course not to meet our energy needs. They are in a full-court press to cover their rear ends. This is almost, not quite, but similar to what’s happening in Iraq. Last year at this time and the year before that, the Democrats were openly embracing defeat, saying our troops couldn’t win, they had no chance, we were fighting an unjust war, we need pull out, we need to lose, and Harry Reid was saying we already have lost.
Now we’ve done a 180 and all of a sudden the news out of Iraq is good, but Democrats don’t dare admit it. Same thing’s happening here with the price of oil, energy independence. They continually are on the wrong side of every major issue facing this country and its growth and its future. So the no-drill Democrats are doing everything they can to cover their rears here, not meet our energy needs. As the law of supply and demand jacks up prices, as more voters realize they’re paying the price for liberal special interests, as the polls swing in favor of more drilling, which they are doing, the last refuge of liberals is always Barbra Streisand, BS. They pop up on television, they smile, they say drilling will not lower prices now. Nothing will right now. There’s not one thing we could do to lower prices right now. ANWR alone won’t make us energy independent for more than six months. Nobody ever said that it would. But I’ll tell you what, just this announcement, just the announcement of this initiative, I’m going to be curious to see what goes on in the speculation market, in the futures market, I’m going to be interested to see how it affects the overall market.
I’ll guarantee you that if the Democrats ever got wise and went along with this and we lift the executive order that prohibits offshore drilling, you watch what happens to the price of oil, once the world knows that the United States of America is going to go get it, because the rest of the world knows we’re the ones who did it; we’re the ones who know how; that with the right leadership, the United States of America is the country on this planet that can do anything it wants for the good of the rest of the people who live on this planet. They know it, they resent it, and they fear it, as do the Democrats. Democrats don’t like us being this big. They don’t like us being a superpower. They think it creates victims in the rest of the world; we need to be cut down to size. This issue fits perfectly. So actually I’d like to amend. We could probably have a fairly immediate effect on price just by announcing our intention to start drilling. Democrats are saying that there are drilling leases out there. Is it, what, millions of acres? Well, the leases are too short-term to allow for EPA rules and test drilling. So then they blame it on Big Oil or Big Speculators or Big Bush or Big Cheney. They blame it on everything but themselves, and their no-drill, no-refine, no-nuclear-plant policies, and that’s exactly who they are: the no-drill, no-refine, no-nuclear-plant Democrats.
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RUSH: Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are out there suggesting that drilling for oil off the coastline of the United States and at ANWR is nothing more than ‘the failed policies of the past.’ Can I be honest with you and tell you what the failed policies of the past are? In 1988, New York governor Mario Cuomo shut down a nuclear plant. That is a failed policy of the past. In 1996, the delightful, the wonderful, the roguish Bill Clinton vetoed exploration and drilling in ANWR. That is a failed policy of the past. Both of those are failed policies of the past. Changing from these failed policies of the past would be to un-fail the failures, to dis-fail the failures. Building nuclear plants, opening ANWR — and then we could sue Cuomo and Clinton for malpractice, political malpractice, for gumming up the works. I’ll tell you something else. How many times have you heard, ladies and gentlemen, that immigrants made us great? We’ve heard that a lot in the last two years, right?
Well, we hear it all our lives. And nobody disputes that when talking about legal immigration. But let me tell you what made us greater. You know what really made us greater? Petroleum. Oil. (interruption) Don’t grimace in there, Dawn. I’m not talking about greater as individuals of character. I’m talking about what propelled this country. It was a number of forces coming together: the establishment of a worldwide Navy, which was not possible without petroleum. Petroleum made us greater. You don’t have to be a Nostrademus — and I know it’s Nostra-damus; I’m saying Nostra-demus — to see that reality will get us off the dime and produce the energy we need. The only question is sooner or later? Will the left help solve this now or wait until the prices at the polls cause enough voters to throw them out of office, which is entirely possible. But I, ladies and gentlemen, don’t just come here and flap the gums. I don’t just come here and utter meaningless syllables.
I, El Rushbo, America’s Real Anchorman and Truth Detector, offer solutions, and I have a solution to this to get the Democrats on board. Have you heard of the Countrywide Six led by Chris Dodd of the banking committee and Kent Conrad, Richard Holbrooke, and a bunch of other Democrats who got sweetheart loans from Countrywide, the mortgage lender? Sometimes they paid no closing costs, lower interest rates — and, of course, they all say, ‘We had no idea!’ They’re now offering legislation, Dodd is, to bail out these lenders. They got a few points in their mortgage loans either for or not for their support. Here’s what we do. If you want the Democrat on board the new drilling, we offer them like 50 cents for every barrel of oil from ANWR and a dime from every barrel of oil that we drill offshore. Sort of like a domestic UN oil-for-food program, we have our oil-for-our-future payola if we just give enough Democrats what they’re used to, graft and bribes, of a small amount per barrel, I’ll bet we can get ’em on board, ladies and gentlemen.
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RUSH: We’ve got one more audio sound bite here from Barack Obama as we conclude our little discussion here on the president’s proposal today to lift the executive order prohibiting drilling and exploration off the continental shelf and in ANWR. This is Obama yesterday aboard his campaign plane.
OBAMA: The most optimistic assumptions indicate that offshore drilling might reduce the overall world price of oil by a few cents. So this is not something that’s going to give consumers short-term relief, and it is not a long-term solution to our problems.
RUSH: The guy is an idiot! He is just an idiot. He is locked into this position because he’s a leftist, radical Democrat. Have you ever noticed…? Who is it that really makes things happen in this country? It’s the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs of all stripes, all sizes, create business of all sizes. They’re a wide range. And who is it that always sets out to punish them and destroy them? Liberals, the American left! Absolutely right, Brian. I could read your lips in there. Good going. What does Obama want? Barack Obama wants you to suffer. Barack Obama wants higher prices on fuel. right now. Barack Obama wants a windfall profits tax. right now. Barack Obama wants to raise your income taxes, by the way, right now. He wants to raise capital gains taxes, right now. He wants to raise Social Security taxes, right now. Obama wants you to suffer. The Democrat Party wants you in pain. They want you angry, and they are willing to block any remedy to this problem in order to keep you suffering and in pain and angry. Obama wants prices up, he wants your income down, and he wants taxes up, ladies and gentlemen.
This business, ‘The most optimistic assumptions indicate that offshore drilling might reduce the overall world price by a few cents’? He’s getting that from Chuck Schumer, but Chuck Schumer is contradicting himself. The world’s going nuts here over the fact the Saudis are going to pump an additional 800,000 barrels a day. ANWR would give us a million — and everybody is talking of 30 to 40 dollars a barrel off the market price if we could just add a million barrels. But nobody is saying cents except the Democrats. So Obama says, ‘Offshore drilling will only save a few cents; repealing the gas tax, ah, that will only save a few cents; offshore drilling, ah, it will only save a few cents; ANWR, ah, it will only save a few cents.’ Everything is only a few cents. How much does changing your lightbulb save, Obama? Here’s a Democrat talking point on this, a montage. This is Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, and Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon.
BOXER: Bet you didn’t know that there are 31 million acres leased in the Gulf of Mexico that the oil companies have not drilled.
MCCASKILL: The oil companies have 68 million acres already under lease they’re not using. So why just give them more acres?
NELSON: We have 68 million acres that can be drilled.
DEFAZIO (screaming): Come on, guys! They are not developing what they have now! There’s 20 years’ supply out there! They haven’t developed it!
RUSH: Well, even if this is true — and it isn’t — could we ask all of you Democrats why? Could it be you? Could it be that there are so many ridiculous, stupid environmental obstacles in their way? Could it be that there are so many taxes weighting upon them put in place by you? Could it be that you are the ones impeding them? But I don’t even accept the premise. Hear are the numbers. As you just heard, the congressional Democrats are claiming that the oil companies are sitting on millions of acres and are not tapping federal leases they own. Here are some facts for you on this, and this is from the Institute for Energy Research. Now, the Institute for Energy Research is the energy equivalent of the Heritage Foundation. Great people.
The reality is that 97% of federal offshore areas are not leased. ‘Ninety-seven percent federal offshore areas are not leased. Ninety-four percent of federal onshore areas are not leased. Right now only 15% of the Outer Continental Shelf acreage is even available for leasing. With domestic oil production in the US declining since 2000 to the lowest level since 1947, it is clear that we need to tap more domestic oil.’ The oil companies have paid money for the leases they own in addition to an annual fee. So it would make no sense to leave them dormant and not drill for oil or even test to determine what oil capabilities are there, particularly at a time of $130 oil. The companies have every incentive to explore, tap the existing leases that they have. It’s just a series of lies and misrepresentations by the Democrats.
They want you mad; they want you suffering. I’m telling you, this is a great issue of contrast — Republicans versus Democrats, conservatives versus liberals, rightists versus leftists, however you want to put it — because it is clear who is on the side of the American people, who’s on the side of independence, who’s on the side of liberty, who’s on the side of lower prices — and it ain’t the party of the so-called little guy. It is not the Democrat Party.
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RUSH: We’ll start here with Mike in Bend, Oregon, great to have you with us, sir, hello.
CALLER: Thank you Mr. Limbaugh, it’s an honor.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I’m not a highly educated guy so maybe you can help me out with something. Didn’t the threat of Star Wars technology from President Reagan and the showing of funding for that from Congress, didn’t that start the dismantling of communism in Europe?
RUSH: It was the final straw. It didn’t start things. It was the final straw. You’re exactly right, by the way, according to Lady Thatcher, you know, I’ve spoken to her several times about this personally. I’ve heard her give lectures on this and she said the Soviet Union knew that when we announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars, they were a Third World country with a first-rate military. They could not keep up with us. They did not have the ingenuity, didn’t have the entrepreneurism, they didn’t have the freedom to create something like that, they could not keep up with us. What they tried to do, Gorbachev tried a bunch of things: glasnost and perestroika, tried to hold on to the communist infrastructure while granting a little freedom here and a little freedom there, and it fell apart on him.
CALLER: And Star Wars technology may never have even existed, but the threat is what started that process.
RUSH: Exactly right, sir.
CALLER: This may be apples and oranges, but wouldn’t the solidarity of our country with the president and Congress that shows that we are going to drill, that we’re going to go after our own oil, wouldn’t that bring the price of oil down like tomorrow? I mean the last thing OPEC wants is for us to produce our own oil, and the fastest way for them to slow us down would be for them to drop the price of oil so that we would not be so interested in drilling for our own oil?
RUSH: But, see, nobody’s in charge of dropping the price of oil or raising it. Too many market prices that really make the price of oil what it is. But theoretically, I assume that, yeah, they would be very alarmed if there were much greater supply coming on the market, regardless where it came from because it is going to put downward pressure on the price. For those of you in Rio Linda, let me speak your language. It will lower the price rather than downward pressure. I also think that simply if we did unite and get congressional approval with the president, sign the legislation, yep, we’re going to do this, I do think that it would immediately impact the oil markets in a positive way with a whole lot of confidence because it would mean more supply.
You know, it’s always the lack of supply, of necessity, that causes unease and sometimes panic, it causes disquiet, it causes nervousness. We’re talking about a need here. You know, we’re not talking here about a shortage of paper clips. We’re talking about a shortage of supply, necessary supply, just to maintain current levels of use and even growth, oil. And that’s going to make a lot of people nervous. If people figure out that the world’s banding together one way or the other to go get more of it, it will no question have a very positive effect. But OPEC would not — in the first place they’re not the cartel. OPEC is not the cartel that they were. Not every oil producing country is a member of OPEC. There is a cartel, but the problem is that the oil cartel today is not producing any. The oil cartel is people standing in the way of production.