Massa calls on president to reconvene Congress
From F29th:
The Massa campaign had a special press call this morning, where Massa called for Randy Kuhl to use his “close personal relationship” with President Bush to call for the President to re-convene Congress.
Massa said that he finds himself “in open disagreement with Speaker Pelosi” about the importance of debating an energy bill now. Massa said, “We need responsible offshore drilling, and we need to solve this problem. Calling the House into session is just a political stunt. If the President calls Congress into session, then we can get something done.”
Massa said he realizes that “I’m probably out there on my own” on this one. But “the Constitution is clear: only the President has the power to re-convene Congress”.
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Offshore drilling is a potentially environmentally devastating industry. See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_drilling. It won’t produce oil which can be made immediately available.
(See, e.g. the Washington Post: “But developing those resources would take time. A report last year by the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said that “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017.” It added, “Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.” ” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071302052_2.html.)
So if the oil won’t be available near future, it won’t reduce prices in the near future, and it can cause irreparable damage to the environment, why is this an issue for which the president should reconvene Congress to engage in some kind of immediate emergency action? Sorry - I support Massa over Kuhl, but I never care for anyone’s grandstanding.