Congress Watch: Democrats seek mileage from gas prices
With President Bush's approval ratings straining under the weight of the troubles in Iraq and his administration's initially stuttering response to Hurricane Katrina, Democrats smell blood and have embarked on a campaign to link the high price of gasoline to Republican inaction or ineptness. It's a reprise of the old political imperative of "kick 'em when they're down."
Lamenting the recent spikes in the cost of gasoline and the potential of more-costly home heating oil this winter, Democrats have introduced legislation in the House and the Senate they say will reduce prices and stop what they regard as price gouging by oil companies. In one piece of proposed legislation, the government will take money from oil companies and return it to consumers.
"We have introduced legislation dealing with the recapture of what we consider to be windfall or excess profits by the oil industry," North Dakota Democrat Sen. Byron Dorgan said Tuesday. "The major integrated oil companies are profiting handsomely to the tune of $7 billion a month extra excess windfall profits, and . . . we believe some of that should be recaptured and returned as a rebate to the consumers in this country."
A second bill, sponsored by Washington State Democrat Maria Cantwell, would make price gouging a federal offense, punishable by heavy fines. House Democrats will this week introduced similar legislation on the other side of the Capitol. "It's a huge problem and we need to do something about it," says Brendan Daly, spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
With only 35 percent of Americans telling pollsters that they approve of Bush's handling of the economy, Democrats sense an opening and have attempted to blame the GOP for not doing enough to deal with the price hikes. "What's the response of the president? What's the response of the Congress?" Dorgan asks. "We'll just sleep through it all; things'll be just fine in the morning. They're not going to be just fine for folks in my part of the country, coming into winter when they're told they have to pay a 70 percent increase in natural gas prices. That's a disaster. And we need to do something about it."
High gas prices always lead to high-stakes politics, and there is no mistaking the politics here. With Republicans in control of the White House and both houses of the legislature, Democrats calculate that an angry voter backlash because of high gas prices will hurt the GOP and could affect the 2006 midterms, which are a mere 13 months away.
"The people have a right to be furious about this in this country," says Dorgan. "They want to know who's on their side, who's willing to stand for them."
Congress Watch analyzes the issues of the day on Capitol Hill and profiles members of the Senate and House.
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