Sarah Palin, John McCain’s “energy expert” in 2008, now appears to be setting the agenda for Mitt Romney. On Earth Day, Palin bashed the “holiest of days for EcoLiberals,” saying in a National Review blogpost that it should be celebrated with “drill, baby, drill.” On Monday, Romney followed Sarah Palin’s lead, telling an audience at a major coal company that he too opposes environmental regulations for drilling of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Romney even adopted Palin’s language in his speech at a Consol Energy research facility:

PALIN: “It’s time for the greatest nation on earth to tap into its full potential, and one surefire way to do so is to tap into what is beneath this earth.”

ROMNEY: “The course that I will put us on is to take advantage of what comes from above the ground as well as what comes from below the ground so that America can finally become energy-secure and independent of the oil cartel.”

“Romney’s energy and environmental platform calls for stripping EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and expanding oil-and-gas leasing to include areas that are currently off limits, including the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, among other measures,” The Hill’s Ben Geman writes.

Romney denied that global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels at a Consol Energy facility last year. Consol has given $5000 to the Romney campaign and $150,000 to the Romney SuperPAC.

Speaking in Cushing, OK, President Barack Obama touted his administration’s record of a huge boom in the U.S. oil and gas industry, dismissing concerns about accelerating climate change:

We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We have quadrupled number of operating rigs to a record high. We have added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the earth and then some. So we are drilling all over the place, right now. That’s not the challenge. That’s not the problem.

Watch it:

Obama announced that he is expediting the construction of the southern leg of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which will connect tar sands and oil shale production from the north to Gulf Coast refineries for tax-free export to foreign markets.

Obama concluded by saying that the “future I want for our kids” is one in which “we’re going to keep on drilling.”

Climate scientists have warned that the prevention of catastrophic climate change would require that 80 percent of known fossil-fuel reserves will have to remain unburned.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

This morning the House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing entitled “Harnessing American Resources to Create Jobs and Address Rising Gasoline Prices: Families and Cost-of-Life Impacts.”

Rather than focus on actual solutions to rising gas prices, Republican committee members advocated for more drilling, a policy which would increase big oil profits but does not decrease gas prices.  In his opening remarks, Chairman Doc Hastings’ (R-WA) stated:

In order to address rising gasoline prices, we must do everything we can to increase production here in the U.S. We have the energy resources; we just need the federal government to get out of the way.

Unfortunately, more drilling does not decrease gas prices.  As the Associated Press reported this morning:

It’s the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show.

A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

This is because oil prices are set on the world market, and are “relatively insensitive to what happens here in the United States with regards to production,” as Senator Jeff Bingaman put it recently.

So why are Republicans continuing to advocate for more drilling as a panacea to high gas prices?  Perhaps because 88 percent of all political contributions from oil and gas companies go to Republicans.  The Natural Resources Committee itself takes an astounding amount of campaign money from oil and gas, as seen in this chart that ThinkProgress put together in November 2011.

In addition to promoting more drilling as a solution to high gas prices, witnesses called by the Republicans at today’s hearing went so far as to oppose additional solutions to high gas prices.  Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) asked each majority witness if they would support keeping the oil and refined products from the Keystone XL pipeline in American, and each stated he or she would not support.  This mirrors the voting pattern of Republicans—all but nine in the entire House voted against a similar amendment to keep American oil on American soil in February of this year.

Additionally, the facts show that under the Obama administration, we are drilling more in America than everywhere else in the world combined.  As of March 16^th, there were 1,984 rotary rigs operating in the U.S., while only 1,721 in the rest of the world.  The number of oil drilling rigs in the U.S. hit a record in February, and have quadrupled over the last three years.

Rather than having hearings about real solutions to gas prices, Republicans on this committee insist on perpetuating myths about the role of domestic drilling in decreasing gas prices.  Next week, they are having another hearing on the subject, and it remains to be seen what “solutions” they will address.

Experts deny that drilling brings down gas prices, despite how often Republicans claim to have the “silver bullet.” Now, the Associated Press reports that an analysis of 36 years of Energy Information Administration data shows “no statistical correlation” between domestic oil production and gas prices.

AP writes:

U.S. oil production is back to the same level it was in March 2003, when gas cost $2.10 per gallon when adjusted for inflation. But that’s not what prices are now.

That’s because oil is a global commodity and U.S. production has only a tiny influence on supply. Factors far beyond the control of a nation or a president dictate the price of gasoline.

When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.

Domestic oil production is at its highest level in eight years. According to the AP, if drilling dictated gas prices, they should already be at the $2 Republicans promise. However, gas prices fluctuate based on a variety of factors, including speculation and tensions in the Middle East.

These facts haven’t stopped Republicans from rallying around “drill, baby, drill.” President Barack Obama quipped last week on the GOP’s drilling fever: “I guess there’s some empty spots where we’re not drilling. We’re not at the National Mall. We’re not drilling at your house.”

As Alaska’s North Slope oil fields get tapped out, oil companies are demanding a tax cut of more than $2 billion a year. Last week, executives from BP and Conoco Phillips told the state senate that their companies would only increase investment in drilling if state taxes on their companies are gutted. They supported the language of House Bill 110, which would cut over $2 billion a year in oil company taxes as oil prices soar:

BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. and Conoco Phillips Alaska told the Senate Resources Committee there are projects the companies could do on Alaska’s North Slope to increase oil production, but those projects will have trouble attracting capital investment because of high state taxes. . . . Conoco Phillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman said the company “has committed to spending $5 billion in the next 3 to 5 years jointly with our co-venturers if there is a tax change similar to what HB 110 proposed.”

BP and Conoco Phillips testified against SB 192, which would only cut oil company taxes by $200 million a year.

Gov. Sean Parnell (R-AK), formerly the director of government relations for ConocoPhillips, supports House Bill 110.

By Tom Kenworthy, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) is only in his first term as a member of the U.S. House. But he’s already collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in campaign contributions from oil and gas interests. It’s by far the number one industry that supports his budding political career.

Little surprise then, that Gardner is a reliable Capitol Hill ally for big oil. Little surprise either, that in serving the oil and gas industry agenda, he gets his facts wrong, as the Denver Post recently reported.

This week, he stepped up to the petroleum plate again, saying he’s introducing legislation to link any sales of our emergency oil supply from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increases in oil and gas leases on federal lands. Sell five percent of the oil in the reserve, said Gardner, and the Obama administration must draw up a plan to increase the amount of federal lands that are leased by five percent. That five percent would mean leasing nearly another two million acres of public land on top of the 38 million acres already under lease.

Apparently with a straight face, Gardner characterized his bill as something other than a blatant give-away to Big Oil:

This bill is about achieving energy independence and keeping prices at the pump affordable

Give Gardner credit. He makes it hard to know where to start the rebutting and fact-checking.

One might begin with the fact that in a recent report on domestic onshore oil and gas production, the Interior Department found that nearly three-fifths of the federal onshore acreage leased to the oil and gas industry was sitting idle and undeveloped. Surely it then makes sense to give them more when they’ve got leases on nearly 22 million acres they have yet to drill.

Or, consider where the drill rigs already are: in the U.S. As recently reported by Michael Conathan, CAP’s Director of Ocean Policy, the number of rigs operating in the U.S. has quadrupled since President Obama took office, and we’ve got more oil rigs at work now than in the rest of the world combined.

All that drilling activity and increased U.S. production – now at an eight year high — hasn’t lowered gasoline prices here, and it won’t. As Conathan pointed out, gasoline supply is dependent on refining capacity more than oil supply, and oil is a global commodity.

Taking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a hostage to Republican talking points has now infected both the House and Senate. Last month, several members of the Senate introduced legislation that would prevent President Obama from selling reserve oil unless his administration approves the Keystone XL Pipeline that would bring dirty tar sands crude from Canada to the U.S.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The “battle over energy exports is intensifying” and at the same time we have no coherent national export policy were the primary takeaways from an event called “Power Play:  Fossil Fuels and U.S. Export Strategy” held this morning at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.  Coal, refined petroleum products from tar sands, and natural gas are currently being exported to hungry overseas markets, and the event was designed to look at the implications of these decisions.

Panelists Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA)  bemoaned the fact that the United States does not have a national strategy on exports.  Wyden accused the country of being “on autopilot” to an energy export policy, which could have tremendous economic, social, and environmental consequences.  He expanded:

So I have been somebody who’s been expansionist on trade and think that we ought to have freer trade, have fairer trade, but we also need to have smarter trade.  And allowing energy producers—we haven’t really touched on this—to trade away our international competitiveness and our energy independence by exporting the resources right now without thinking through the implications here of what it means for consumers and our companies doesn’t strike me as a smart trade policy.

Watch it:

As the price of natural gas continues to plummet, pressure to export it as liquefied natural gas has increased, and last year the U.S. was a net exporter of refined petroleum products for the first time since 1949.  As well, the coal industry is preparing to significantly increase exports of American coal overseas.  In response to these trends, the members detailed four critical areas that could be impacted by exports, which they believe need more careful consideration:  domestic energy, national security, consumer prices, and environmental impacts.

A second panel addressed different perspectives on coal exports.  Panelists represented the energy finance industry, Pacific Northwest residents impacted by coal export traffic and terminals, landowners concerned about the impacts of mining, and a labor and environmental alliance.

Markey, who released a report at the event entitled “Drill Here, Sell There, Pay More,” summed up the need for serious thinking on exports by saying:

We should first decide what we want to do for the United States of America.

In a speech today on energy policy at the University of Miami, President Barack Obama went off his prepared remarks to note that young people — including his daughters — seem to care more than his generation does about the fate of the planet:

Anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about or just isn’t telling you the truth. Young people especially understand this, because, you know, it’s interesting. When I talk to Malia and Sasha — you guys are so much more aware of conserving our resources and thinking about the planet.

Watch it:

The president’s speech forcefully rejected the Republican idea that the solution to all of the world’s ills — including rising gas prices — is to drill, baby, drill. However, not once did Obama directly recognize the reality of climate change. The past burning of hundreds of billions of tons of fossil fuels is already degrading the safety of our planet for human civilization. To keep Obama’s own promise of limiting total warming to no more than 2°C, about 80 percent of proved fossil-fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground.

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last night the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.