This week's agenda for the house includes 3 bills that all appear to improve the energy security of the United States. Looking at the last bill, H.R. 4899, one can only ask the question "Why?".
H.R. 4899 is named the "Lowering Gasoline
Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act of 2014". It has two titles. The first title promotes leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf for Oil and Gas production. The second title promotes onshore oil and gas permitting, including access to the Alaska strategic petroleum reserve. The bill is structured to default leasing and permit to applications to be accepted if nothing is done by the Administration and there are fees both to submit an application as well as to protest an application.
As of today, this bill has passed through the Rules committee of the House, which means that Rules have been created which determine how this bill will be debated by the House. In this case, there appear to be no amendments for the bill, so the bill will essentially be subject to an up or down vote by the house.
So where does this paragon of legislative achievement go from here?
First assumption: Since this bill is co-sponsored by 14 Republicans and 0 Democrats, this appears to be a partisan bill that was brought to the floor by the House majority party for a vote.
Second assumption: The House majority party has enough votes to pass this in the House.
Third assumption: This bill will not be brought up by the Democrat controlled Senate. Thus, it won't become law.
Why does our government insist on going through this exercise for no effect? I can think of only a few reasons for the House majority party to proceed:
First reason: Improve the standing of the majority party with their constituents. Voting on this bill allows members of the majority party to claim that they tried to improve the lots of their constituents. However, given the dirth of press on this issue, the majority party doesn't appear to be trying very hard to get the word out.
Second reason: Lower the standing of the minority party with their constituents. Voting on this bill allows members of the majority party to claim that the other party that controls the Senate is being obstructionist. Again, this would seem to require press. Also, given that this bill doesn't align well with the policy positions of the minority party anyway, working against the bill doesn't really lower the standing of the minority party.
Third reason: Improve the standing of members of the majority party with specific lobbies. This reason makes sense, especially given the lack of press coverage. In this case, lobbyists may provide either legislative help (writing bills) or electoral help (cash) in return for taking a vote on this bill.
Note that nowhere in this article have I debated the merits of the bill in question. However, since bills go through this process all of the time (think of the 50 or so bills to repeal, restructure or defund Obamacare in this Congressional session), it is important for citizens to understand why their elected officials act the way they do. Hopefully, this will help citizens understand whether the "actions" of their representatives are meaningful to their constituents and who their constituents really are.
So, what are the alternatives?
