RUSH: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, said today that politicians who suggest that lifting a ban on offshore oil drilling would ease rising fuel prices in the US were ‘blowing smoke.’ Actually, I guess he said this yesterday in Miami. This is what he said.
SCHWARZENEGGER: From the rethinking nuclear power to pushing biofuels and more renewables and ending the ban on offshore drilling, and it goes on and on the list. But anyone who tells you that this will bring down our gas prices immediately or any time soon, is blowing smoke.
RUSH: Now, governor, you and I know each other, and you’re smarter than this. You are smarter. Nobody is saying, nobody has ever said that drilling is going to bring down the gas price tomorrow or next week. Governor, that’s not what this is about. What this is about is eventually increasing the supply. What this is about is coming up with ways — real ways right now — to establish energy independence. You know, this argument… We had a great call about this, this week. This argument that if we start drilling today, it’s not going to have any effect tomorrow. Well, then why do anything? Why start college? Why start? Why take the first step on your career ladder? If you have a 500-mile trip to drive, why even leave? You’re not going to get there tomorrow; you’re not going to get there tonight. Where did this come from? This is designed not just to depress people. This is designed to suppress the whole notion of energy independence.
All of their alternatives? We’re all blue in the face from saying this: Do you think wind power is going to reduce prices tomorrow? Name for me the alternative energy. We have Senator McCain out there offering a $300 million award for somebody who comes up with a mechanism by which an automobile can get a hundred miles to the gallon, or whatever his deal is. Do you think that’s going to happen tomorrow? You think you’re anywhere nearer an automobile that gets a hundred miles to the gallon, when we start working on it tomorrow? Is that going to happen the next day? And, by the way, there’s a little hypocrisy here. Governor Schwarzenegger lives in Pacific Palisades, I believe. He lives somewhere in Los Angeles, and Governor Schwarzenegger, as governor, works in Sacramento. Governor Schwarzenegger commutes every day up to Sacramento and back from Los Angeles. You can do it in about an hour, 45 minutes.
He does it in a Gulfstream G550. One guy. Maybe he’s got a little entourage on the plane. I don’t know, and I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me, but if he’s going to tell everybody else they gotta cut back and that we can’t start drilling for oil and yet he’s up there burning all these millions of gallons of jet fuel over the course of a year, flying back and forth to Sacramento to do his job. You know how he says he gets away with it? Well, I’m buying carbon offsets. I’m investing in carbon offsets that compensate entirely for my use of fuel, here. Well, that’s absurd. This state, California… Every time I go out there — and I love it there. I lived there for 3-1/2 years. I have a lot of friends, and I love it out there, but I would never live there. I would love to, but the tax rates, the illegal immigration, that state is precariously balanced.
The overall liberal tilt of that state, the absence of any significant Republican Party opposition. California just passed their big global warming plan, cap-and-trade plan. Is that going to work tomorrow? It’s not going to work period, but is it going to work tomorrow, the cap-and-trade plan? So all these things that they’re coming up with, to so-called save the country, save the state, save the planet, are they going to work tomorrow? No, they’re not. It’s just a very frustrating thing, and all these people know it. Schwarzenegger knows damn well we’re not talking about getting oil out of the ground tomorrow and lowering the pump price tomorrow. He knows exactly what this is. So there’s an opposition to oil here that’s based on reasons these people are not telling us. Their opposition to oil is based on things they don’t want us to know they believe.
If you have a basic understanding of the role oil has played in the enrichment of peoples across this planet, if you understand the role that oil has played in the expansion of freedom and opportunity and the creation of wealth, if you understand that — and most people do — how in the world can you be Obama and say, ‘Well, drilling for oil right now, well, that’s a failed policy of the past. It’s another one of those failed policies of the past.’ Failed policy of the past. Where would we be without it? So why do they want us to not drill for more oil? Do you think it’s about ‘saving the planet’? Do you think that it is about all of this global warming stuff? Do you think it’s about preventing oil spills? Do you think that’s why they’re opposed to drilling for oil? It isn’t. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with liberalism and the expansion of government and the reduction, ever so slowly, of individual liberties, and it has everything to do, within the minds of some, of weakening this country on purpose.
I will never forget — and I caught hell for this on this program — I caught hell for it. I remember during the recall election out there when Gray Davis was on the outs and Arnold was running, and he’s showing up on Jay Leno’s show, and everybody is going gaga.
‘Arnold’s a great conservative!’
I said, ‘He’s not a conservative, folks. He’s not a conservative. He may be a Republican, but he’s not a conservative,’ and I gave them examples.
They did not want to hear it. I got grief. You remember this. I had people calling me and telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that I was sabotaging this good man and his race for governor.
I said, ‘No, no, no. I’m not telling you not to vote for him. I’m just telling you he’s not a conservative.’
Ahem. Where are you now? Where are all of you who told me I didn’t know what I was talking about? Where are all of you who told me I was sabotaging Arnold’s campaign for governor? I haven’t heard from you lately. I haven’t heard you call and say what great conservative things Arnold is doing for the state of California. The lesson here? Don’t doubt me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Hey, Governor Schwarzenegger, you’re big on CAFE standards. A lot of you liberals are big on CAFE standards, the fleet mileage standards that automobile manufacturers must meet, standards established for them by the wizards of smart in the US Congress, right? Now, the CAFE standards are always meant to be reached in five, six, seven, ten years, right? So let me ask you people a question. Why even have CAFE standards? CAFE standards are blowing smoke. You got these new mileage requirements, they’re not going to happen for ten years, not going to happen tomorrow, why do it at all? It’s going to take another ten years to replace all the existing cars on the road that violate these. You just can’t go taking them away from people. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, so why do CAFE standards? These people are starting to make me mad, and they ought not get away with this kind of ignorance. That kind of ignorance that Schwarzenegger uttered ought to provoke an outrage, mass outrage from intelligent, engaged citizens in California, because that is not smart, it’s not caring, it’s not compassionate. Why invest in biofuels? It’s going to be a long time before biofuels — well, we actually know they’re bombing out.
Try this. This is from the Associated Press. ‘Growing global demand and supply constraints will push oil prices to $200 a barrel and gas prices to $7 a gallon within four years, forcing 10 million U.S. cars off the road, according to Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets.’ So that’s where this started, some guy on Wall Street. Two hundred a dollar barrel oil in four years, seven dollar a gallon gasoline. This is news, right? And guess what. Ten million fewer cars by 2012? Really? They know this, do they? ”Many of those in the exit lane will be low-income Americans from households earning less than $25,000 per year,’ Rubin said in a statement. ‘At their current driving habits, filling up the tank will have risen from about seven percent of their income to 20 percent, an increase that will see many start taking the bus.” Which is exactly what they want. They want as many of you in suburbia to get on mass transit because then you are theirs. You travel on their set schedule. You travel where their mass transit takes you. You think I’m making this up and you think I’m exaggerating, but I’m telling you, what else can this be? Ten million fewer cars. Again, speculation about what’s going to be the case four years from now that makes its way into the AP as a news story.