June 19, 2008 04:23 AM UTC

Democrat's call for nationalization of refineries.

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• by: NEWSMAN

Urgent: House Democrats call for nationalization of refineries

Capitol Hill

House Democrats responded to President’s Bush’s call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.

Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so it could better control the flow of the oil supply.

They also reasserted that the reason the Appropriations Committee markup (where the vote on the amendment to lift the ban) was cancelled so they could focus on preparing the supplemental Iraq spending bill for tomorrow.

(A Republican) aide said there was the thought that Democrats may wish to avoid a debate today on energy amendments.

Here are the highlights from briefing

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the most-ardent opponents of off-shore drilling…”We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market….”

They (Republicans) have a one-trick pony approach.Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), Chairman of the Resources Committee…”You cannot drill your way out of this…”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Global Warming…”The White House has become a ventriloquist for the oil and gas energy. The finger should be directed back at them. They had plenty of opportunity to (arrange an energy policy). But they did not put an energy policy in place…”

“Democrats have a strong energy policy, keep the supply artificially low by putting up every roadblock to exploration and new refineries we can think of, and let the high price force Americans to conserve or go broke…” (ed.)

http://www.foxnews.com/urgent_…

http://www.nerepublican.com/in…