Pelosi: GOP’s Oil Drilling Plan Is A ‘Hoax’ A Republican plan to open more public land to oil exploration and drilling is “unworthy of serious debate,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Monday. Under pressure from Republicans to call Congress back into session, Pelosi on Monday issued a statement saying that Democrats have already offered a “real solution” to the nation’s high energy prices. Democrats want to force President Bush to “free our oil” from the nation’s emergency stockpile. Diverting oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve “would bring immediate relief within 10 days,” Pelosi insisted. She said a Republican plan to “give away public lands to Big Oil” will not immediately reduce prices at the pump -- and it would save Americans “only 2 cents ten years from now.”....
GOP Calls on Dems to Return from ‘Recess’ for Vote on Offshore Drilling Congress recessed for the summer on Friday, but that didn’t keep Republicans from returning to the House floor on Monday to demand that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) reconvene lawmakers to pass energy legislation, including lifting the ban on offshore drilling. “It was simply wrong for Congress to take a five-week paid vacation without ever taking a vote on giving the American people more access to American oil,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) said of the unprecedented gathering. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) called for the action on the floor, which saw representatives shouting comments from the floor because microphones had been turned off by the Democrats....