Yarmuth pushes back against Northup on energy policy

Shortly after his opponent and former U.S. Rep Anne Northup (R-Louisville) took her case for increased domestic drilling to a southwest Louisville gas station, U.S. Rep John Yarmuth (D-Louisville) fired back at Northup's critique of his own energy proposals during an afternoon conference call with reporters.

"It's interesting that Anne is proposing again more policies that benefit the oil companies when she has taken $300,000 in campaign contributions over her career running for Congress and also owns half a million dollars in energy company stock, so this is no change in policy and more of the same," said Yarmuth.

Earlier today, at a press conference at a Thornton's gas station, Northup pushed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - among other locales - as the most immediate solution to high gas prices while blasting Congressional Democrats for maneuvering to halt that policy during her five terms in Congress.

Northup also targeted the current Democratic majority as responsible for continuing hikes in gas prices.

"What she obviously doesn't understand is that the major factors in the oil price controversy or the oil price rise relate to factors that were in play long before the Democrats took control of Congress seventeen months ago," said Yarmuth.

"Two major factors being that the weak economy has caused the dollar to be so weak that about 40% of the increase in the price of oil is related to that," added Yarmuth. "Secondly, we destabilized middle east because of war in Iraq which has put uncertainty into the world's oil market."

Yarmuth also argued it was Republicans who were obstructing the Democratic majority's efforts to pass "major energy legislation that would move this country in a total different direction."

"Those legislative efforts so far have been scuttled by [Northup's] former colleagues both in the House and the Senate, and the White House," said Yarmuth. "This Congress has moved aggressively to develop a new energy policy for the country and we will continue to do that into the next administration."

The freshman U.S. Rep upset Northup, knocking her out of her 3rd Congressional District Seat in 2006. This year she is back for a rematch against the incumbent in a race targeted by both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Republican National Congressional Committee.

Last week, Yarmuth announced his support of so-called "use it or lose it" legislation that would require oil companies holding leases on public lands to begin exploratory drilling there immediately or face fines.

Today, Yarmuth said the bill was intended to "call attention to the fact that oil companies can drill tomorrow on 30 million acres of land and 30 million acres off shore without going through anything," in contrast to drilling in ANWR which requires legislative approval.

During her remarks today, Northup criticized this legislation for forcing oil companies to drill in potentially "unprofitable" areas where oil supply may not meet the costs of exploration and drilling.

"If that were the case, then why would the oil companies have paid billions of dollars for the permits that they have?" asked Yarmuth in response.

Yarmuth said the leased lands remained undrilled because oil companies "continue to keep oil off the market rather than bring supply on the market" in an effort to control prices.

"What the oil companies want to do...they want to keep the price high and sell oil that is easy to retrieve from where they are getting it in Argentina, and Venezuela, and a lot of places," said Yarmuth.

The incumbent said the land in question under the "use it or lose it" legislation could provide a big boost to supply, if drilled by oil companies.

"The projected supply that they now have the right to access is just under 5,000,000 barrels a day of oil, which is about 20 or 25 percent increase on what we now produce in this country," said Yarmuth.

United State Geological Survey estimates put the minimum total number of barrels of oil recoverable in ANWR at 4.3 billion.