Three Kentucky signatories on pro-drilling letter to Pelosi

Three of Kentucky's four Republican U.S. Reps joined sixty-seven of their colleagues by signing a letter to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) asking her to work to allow floor votes in the Democratically-controlled U.S. House on legislation they say would lower gas prices.

U.S. Reps Hal Rogers (R-Somerset), Geoff Davis (R-Ft. Mitchell), and Ed Whitfield (R-Hopkinsville) all signed the letter which calls for votes on bills that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf, among other policy.

"Kentuckians know that in order to bring down record high fuel costs, we need to increase our domestic energy production," Whitfield said in a statement. "Yet, leaders in the House of Representatives continue to block consideration of any sensible, productive legislation that would aid American consumers trying to fill up their tanks this summer. The time for action is now."

Though the letter is more diplomatically worded, signatories argue that "successfully attacking" high gas prices requires a "sustained increase in American energy production.

(Read the letter here - right click, save as).

The letter's signatories also equate Pelosi's recent call for the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - the Department of Energy's emergency fuel reserve - as recognition that "the solution to today's high energy prices is to increase supply to the market."

"You stated in your letter to the President that ‘deploying a small portion of the resources in the SPR would provide much needed assistance to American consumers,'" reads the letter. "Can you imagine what an act of Congress, signed into law this year, to develop millions of barrels per day in Alaska, the Intermountain West, and in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf would do?"

Signatories also are pushing for votes on legislation that would fund coal-to-liquid fuel projects and permit the development of oil shale reserves.

Of the nine pieces of legislation suggested for vote by the letter's signatories, none have gone beyond the introductory phase of the legislative process during this session of Congress.

Many House Democrats oppose legislation that would allow drilling in the Republicans' targeted areas. Opponents argue the drilling would cause irreperable environmental damage, and note oil supplies from those areas would not hit the market for several years.

Democrats have presented a series of alternatives that have been voted on in the U.S. House.

Among Kentucky's own Democratic U.S. Reps, John Yarmuth (D-Louisville) threw his support behind two pieces of legislation that would require drilling not in ANWR or the continental shelf, but on undrilled public lands already leased by oil companies. Both of those bills failed to pass the House.

Yarmuth is also part of a call to suspend speculation on the energy markets - activity he said may be responsible for up to 50% of recent hikes in oil prices.