Yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) attended the ground-breaking of a transportation project in Lytton, IA, a small town in his district. In a glowing press release on his website, he praised the project:

“Today we celebrate a major milestone in the effort to complete a four-lane U.S. Highway 20 from Sioux City all the way to Dubuque and on to Chicago,” said King. “I supported this project before I was elected to the Iowa Senate and made it my number one transportation priority as a Member of Congress. In working with our state’s senators and House delegation, the Four-Lane Highway 20 Association, and local communities, I have networked the effort to secure millions in federal funds to help bring this project to western Iowa. I will continue to do all I can to keep it moving until the day we cut the ribbon on the final mile of four-lane Highway 20.”

While King happily touts his role in the procurement of funds for U.S. 20′s expansion, he neglects to mention that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (commonly referred to as the stimulus package) — a bill that he heavily criticized and voted against — actually provides a majority of the funds for the project. Although King also secured federal funds for this project through the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, the congressman again overlooks his unequivocal opposition to the bill, which he previously described as a part of the “ongoing fiscal train wreck in Washington.”

Following the long tradition of Republican stimulus hypocrites before him, King fails to acknowledge the benefits of the stimulus to his state. In Iowa alone, nearly 9,000 jobs have been created as a result of stimulus dollars. Moreover, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery act has already saved or created 2.8 million jobs, an estimated 3.7 million by September.

– Nina Bhattacharya

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission continues to keep state waters open to fishing despite contamination by the BP oil disaster, the Wonk Room has learned. On June 16, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) extended the federal fisheries closure to the federal waters seven miles off Panama City Beach. Meanwhile, the state encouraged fishing with the announcement that “all Florida residents and visitors are invited to fish statewide for saltwater species without a license during the upcoming Father’s Day weekend, June 19-20.” On June 19, tarballs began washing up on Panama City Beach. On June 20, the visible oil slick spread to one mile of the Panama City coast, well within the seven-mile state boundary, but the state did not put the waters off limits to fishing:

Satellite image of oil slick one mile off Panama City, FL, June 20, 2010, from University of Miami.

Gov. Charlie Crist’s (I-FL) office warned residents on June 21 that “the Florida Panhandle will continue to be threatened by shoreline contacts as far east as Panama City through Monday,” but the State Fish & Wildlife Commission kept the waters open, just off the impacted shore. Other than the “partial fishing closure in Escambia County” the commission belatedly imposed, the agency’s official position is that “the rest of Florida’s recreational and commercial fisheries have not been directly affected by the oil spill.”

Cross-posted on the Wonk Room.

Today, a federal district court judge with financial investments in the oil industry ruled against the Obama administration’s 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling, which the President issued in the wake BP’s Gulf oil spill to ensure that future drilling is safe and environmentally sound. The White House has said it will appeal the decision.

Last week, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) decided to take the legislative route, introducing a bill in the House to lift the moratorium, saying it “is turning a tragedy into a nightmare.” He called it a “job-killing policy” because it will cause, he said, “other oil rich nations to move their rig operations overseas.” But last night on Fox News, when host Greta Van Susteren asked Olson if he could guarantee that the rigs effected by the moratorium have been “inspected” and are “safe,” Olson dodged, citing the “history of drilling” and the economy:

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you have any way of knowing that, for instance, the blow-out preventers work on these other 33 rigs, any way to guarantee that they have been, you know, inspected, that they’ve got all the sort of redundancy that’s necessary to make — to make sure they’re safe?

OLSON: Yes, ma’am. I would tell people look at the history of drilling in the gulf. We’ve been drilling there for over 50 years, 20 years in the deep water, and this is the first major accident we’ve had. [...]

VAN SUSTEREN: I think — it’s not history I’m looking for, it’s more assurances. [...]

OLSON: Yes, ma’am. And the administration, our government, clearly had no plan to do this. But again, this moratorium extends — again, it turns an economic challenge into an economic disaster.

Watch it:

But offshore oil drilling isn’t exactly 100 percent “safe,” nor will it ever be. And Olson is wrong about drilling “history.” Failures of blowout preventers and actual blowouts are fairly common. The largest oil spill in history (before BP’s) also occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, on an exploratory rig blowout.

It’s unclear why Olson ignores or seems to be unaware of these facts. Perhaps it could be because the Texas Republican’s biggest contributor is the oil and gas industry. In the two years he has been in Congress, Olson has collected $216,000 from oil and gas companies and in the current election cycle, polluter companies have given the most to Olson, nearly doubling the next highest industry contributor.