Recent attempts were made to obtain Virginia transportation funds outside of the regular and more popular means of raising taxes.  VA Senate Bills SB6005 and SB6011 were combined and aimed to set aside a majority of revenues received from offshore drilling for transportation dollars.  Today, this bill was voted down (predictably straight down party lines) in committee. Congratulations to those Virginia Senators who are thinking outside the box with regard to funding VA Transportation.  Those who opposed the bill sighted potential environmental effects of offshore drilling.

The outcome of this vote only solidifies my belief of Democrat’s wish to raise funds by repeated taxation of their constituents.  Tax hikes, I dread, is Democrat’s modus operandi…tax hikes disguised as “fairness” but socialist in application.  I digress

When I think of offshore drilling, I cannot help but think of Louisiana and the lack of significant oil spills even in the face of numerous 100+ mph hurricanes.   Following are links to research of the environmental affects of Offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico:

Destroyed/disabled platforms during hurricanes converted to artificial reefs (Link 1, Link 2)

Fish population at existing and working platforms.

Drilling pipes and associated canals cause salt water to encroach fresh-water ecosystems. Be that as it may, I am not convinced that this is the only contributor to decline of LA’s freshwater ecosystems.   In our arrogance to control nature, we’ve built numerous levees that prohibit the natural flow of rivers and as such destroy fresh water flood ways and ecosystems (One for certain–Achafalaya Basin).  Levee systems have systematically destroyed LA’s wetlands and coastal fishing industry while platforms have increased fishing sources.

TRANSPORTATION UPDATE:  The VA Democrats followed with their own bill to raise the VA gas and sales tax to raise transportation funds.  This bill promptly got voted down by the Republican House.  The state legislature will have another special session with the hopes of coming to a consensus for generating transportation funds.

DRILLING UPDATE:  Forbes just published a list of highest paid blue-collar jobs.  These jobs included oil extraction and gas refinery jobs.  The vote this past week was just another way to say, “Screw you, Virginia blue-collar worker!”

I went from being in a really great mood because the State of Oklahoma has stood up to the Fed and expressed their respective sovereignty under the Constitution…

…right back down to Earth having to listen to this:

Our Republican friends also talk about the need to, you know, set up ways in which the material can be refined; refineries. Well, do we own refineries? No, the oil companies own refineries.

Should the people of the United States own refineries? Maybe so. Frankly I think that’s a good idea. Then we could control the amount of refined product much more capably that gets out on the market.

…

Reporter: I’ve got a question about the issue of — you mentioned the issue of nationalizing refineries and having nationally owned refinery capacity. A lot of other countries have nationalized their oil industry. You mentioned that the oil and gas companies may not want to drill on these lands, so that they can take advantage of ever- higher gas prices. Is there any thought to having bills that would nationalize some of these refineries or start a national oil company?…

… REP. HINCHEY: Yeah, there’s thought going on about this. Frankly, this is something that I think is essential. And I think it’s only a matter of time before it takes place. I think that the — we’ll — what we have to do has to be in the interest of the American people, primarily, basically, in the interest of the American people, not in the interest of some major corporations. And the determination as to how much of this very important material gets refined, and consequently out on the market, is in the hands of the oil companies. And they just do. They make those decisions based upon their efforts to drive up the price as high as they can and keep it as high as they can for as long as they can.

So I think that this is something that this Congress should be thinking about. And certainly it’s something that I’m thinking about, and I think that there are a few others already in the Congress who are thinking about it as well.

REP. EMANUEL: Let me just add one thing — and then I you know have a question, and then we got to get going — is as it relates to the refinery issue, there’s been a tremendous amount of incentives, tax and otherwise, given to the oil and gas companies to expand or build new ones.

As I — now I’m a little on weaker grounds. I think it’s been, what, 20 years since a new refinery has been built.

REP. : Yeah.

REP. EMANUEL: And then clearly, the need is there. They haven’t met that. And I think whether you support or don’t nationalization, the question is what it is going to take to get the energy industry, given that we’ve given both direct and otherwise assistance, to build more refining capacity.

Hat tip to The Swamp.

A couple of SLIGHT details that our friends in the House are leaving out of this casual nationalization talk:

Some countries that have nationalized their oil industries: Mexico, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Models of Progressivism all.

Plus, is everyone forgetting that Europeans (TRUE models of Progressive energy policies and global friendliness) pay about 4 times as much as we do for gasoline (or at least they did; it’s probably more like three times as much now).

Here’s a good article about the risks of oil nationalization.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen tells us that only 47% of Americans are fully opposed to nationalization of our oil industry.