From today's Paducah Sun:

If Bruce Lunsford were to arrive at his next cocktail party with bib overalls over his tuxedo it would be no stranger than his attempts to portray himself as a populist in his campaign for the U.S. Senate.

When the Democratic challenger to Sen. Mitch McConnell called the Senate minority leader “Multi-millionaire Mitch” at the Fancy Farm picnic, it must have made even his most ardent supporters wince. The fabulously wealthy Lunsford is the Democratic nominee only because he is self funded — the national party would not invest limited resources in such a long-shot race — and the only other self-funded candidate in the crowded primary was profoundly unqualified.

Lunsford is blasting American oil companies, an easy target with gas near $4 a gallon. Taking a cue from Barack Obama, he supports a windfall profits tax — which he defines as “unexpected profits” — on oil companies. But acknowledging that those profits are unexpected does not prevent him from implying that the high prices at the pump are the result of collusion on the part of Big Oil — with, naturally, the complicity of Mitch McConnell.

Big Oil does not set oil prices, but oil companies do indeed benefit when prices go up. That, Lunsford believes, is unacceptable. He thinks Congress should decide when an American company makes too much money and confiscate profits it considers excessive.

What does Lunsford intend to do about the foreign governments — two-thirds of our oil is imported — who are also enjoying “windfall” profits from American oil consumption? Answer: Give them a competitive advantage by making it more costly for American companies to reinvest profits in exploration and refining.

And that’s only the half of it. The candidate wants to make it doubly difficult for Big Oil to increase domestic production. His eight-point plan for energy independence does not include drilling at ANWR and along the Outer Continental Shelf, where vast oil reserves are known to exist. Yet the plan does include coercing oil companies to drill on land and offshore sites currently leased for drilling but where oil companies have determined no significant quantities of recoverable oil exist. He states, “ ... these areas are undeveloped because drilling there would not yield high enough profits to maintain oil companies’ record earnings.”

Pause to catch your breath, dear reader; a statement so stupid surely took your breath away. Lunsford, who clearly knows better after his successful business career, would force oil companies to make manifestly unsound business decisions.

Lunsford calls McConnell unfair for placing part of the blame for high gas prices on Lunsford himself, then defends his role in doing just that. As a member of the Gov. John Y. Brown administration, Lunsford lobbied for automatic increases in the state fuel tax. The most recent increase, pushing the state gasoline tax to just over 21 cents per gallon, was quietly added to the price at the pump this summer.

Lunsford boasted, “We changed the way we tax gas in the state to give us a budget that could grow.”

That’s the justification — ensuring a budget that can grow? We’ll take comfort contemplating that fact next time we fill up.

Ironically, Lunsford’s plan calls for a holiday from the federal gas tax, which stands at 18 cents a gallon. Apparently 18 cents is too much tax, but 21 cents is not.

The true comprehensive plan for energy independence is the one McConnell champions day after day in the Senate chamber. It includes, like Lunsford’s plan, clean-coal technology, lifting the ban on developing vast shale oil deposits and alternative/renewable forms of energy. But unlike Lunsford, McConnell also calls for increasing nuclear power, the cleanest, most economical source of energy. And he calls for lifting the ban on offshore drilling and tapping ANWR’s vast reserves of recoverable oil.

Unfortunately, Majority Leader Harry Reid thwarts every serious attempt to decrease American dependence on foreign oil. Increasing domestic supply is anathema to Democrats in Congress, who are under the thumb of the environmental lobby.

Multi-millionaire Bruce is disguised as a regular Joe. He’s apparently intimidated by Kentucky’s two largest newspapers, with their reliably liberal editorial pages, hoping they won’t pick on him for being rich as long as he rails against others in his tax bracket. It’s an unbecoming role for Lunsford.

Senator Mitch McConnell is fighting to pass the Gas Price Reduction Act. The Act would help solve America’s energy crisis by applying the principle, “find more, use less.” Senator McConnell’s bill opens the door to increased domestic energy exploration, and supports efforts to increase energy conservation.

Washington Democrats oppose these common-sense efforts to both increase energy production and decrease consumption. Senator McConnell is leading the call to do both, find more and use less.

From columnist Charles Krauthammer (emphasis added):

Democrats have the advantage on just about every domestic issue from health care to education. However, Americans' greatest concern is the economy, and their greatest economic concern is energy (by a significant margin: 37 percent to 21 percent for inflation). Yet Democrats have gratuitously forfeited the issue of increased drilling for domestic oil and gas. By an overwhelming margin of 2 to 1, Americans want to lift the moratorium preventing drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, thus unlocking vast energy resources shut down for the past 27 years.

Democrats have been adamantly opposed. They say that we cannot drill our way out of the oil crisis. Of course not. But it is equally obvious that we cannot solar or wind or biomass our way out. Does this mean that because any one measure cannot solve a problem, it needs to be rejected?

Barack Obama remains opposed to new offshore drilling (although he now says he would accept a highly restricted version as part of a comprehensive package). Just last week, he claimed that if only Americans would inflate their tires properly and get regular tuneups, "we could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling."

This is bizarre. By any reasonable calculation of annual tire-inflation and tuneup savings, the Outer Continental Shelf holds nearly a hundred times as much oil. As for oil shale, also under federal moratorium, after a thousand years of driving with Obama-inflated tires and Obama-tuned engines, we would still have saved an amount equal to only one-fifth the oil shale available in the United States.

But forget the math. Why is this issue either/or? Who's against properly inflated tires? Let's start a national campaign, Cuban-style, with giant venceremos posters lining the highways. ("Inflate your tires. Victory or death!") Why must there be a choice between encouraging conservation and increasing supply? The logical answer is obvious: Do both.

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The problem for the Democrats is that the argument for "do everything" is not rocket science. It is common sense. Which is why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, surveying the political rubble resulting from her insistence on not even permitting drilling to come to a floor vote, has quietly told her members that they can save their skins and vote for drilling when the pre-election Congress convenes next month. Pelosi says she wants to save the planet. Apparently saving her speakership comes first.

Senator Mitch McConnell traveled to Owensboro on Thursday for the Chamber of Commerce’s Rooster Breakfast. Read this report on the event from the Messenger-Inquirer.

Discussion of energy -- producing more and using less -- dominated U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's speech to the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce's Rooster Booster breakfast Thursday morning.

That message could have been taken straight from the results of a poll conducted Wednesday by the national polling firm Rasmussen Reports that showed 81 percent of likely voters believe there is an urgent need to find new energy and 67 percent see the same urgency in reducing consumption.

"The solution is to find more and to use less," McConnell told the crowd at the RiverPark Center. "There is no one way to get on top of this problem."

McConnell, who is facing re-election this year, took the opportunity to make a pitch for his return to Washington next January by reminding residents how much money he has secured for the state.

He cited a recent magazine article that showed that U.S. Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania was the most effective freshman lawmaker in delivering dollars to his home state with $16 million in the last year.

By comparison, McConnell said he brought in $500 million for Kentucky in the last year, which he said speaks to the clout he has been able to garner while in office.

"There would be a massive loss of influence and clout were you to trade me in for a freshman Democrat," McConnell said.

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As has been the case with many Republican lawmakers since Congress adjourned last Friday for a five-week recess, McConnell hammered Democratic leaders over the proposal in the U.S. House to expand offshore oil drilling that has not been taken to a vote.
McConnell estimated that expanding oil production through more drilling and conversion of oil shale could increase domestic supplies by 3 million barrels a day and conservation measures would eventually decrease demand by 4 million barrels a day.

Those two fronts would have an impact on the 21 million barrels of oil currently being consumed in the United States, 12 million of which come from outside the country, McConnell said.
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