Wonkette

Hey, did you hear? Oil is almost $100/barrel. What does this have to do with politics? Well, naturally, if there are headlines to be had, Congress comes calling.

Remember that energy bill thing? The legislation to take tax breaks away from oil companies and fund R&D for green power sources that the Democrats passed with some fanfare in the wake of Memorial Day oil prices? Yeah, well, they passed 2 different versions of that last summer and never quite got around to doing anything else about it like coming up with a compromise version of the legislation or getting anything to the President or anything. Oops.

So, now that oil prices are going up again and some analysts are scaring people into reading their reports by predicting $4/gallon gas next year, Congressional leaders are thinking they just might possibly get around to that whole silly time-consuming conference process and, whaddaya know, there’s not going to be a ton of stuff in it that will be able to affect current oil prices which is what constituents are pissed about anyway. What Congress eventually gets around to doing might actually cause increases in electricity and gas prices in the short term because the cheap stuff is also the dirty stuff (as is so often the case). But, hey, they’re talking about developing new fuel efficiency standards for cars that will go into effect in a few years so they can claim credit for reducing our oil dependency — even if they mean “in the long term” without actually saying it so that you’ll believe your gas is going to get cheaper.

Also, your gas? It’s not going to get cheaper regardless of what Congress does.

Voter Anger May Free Up Energy Bills [NY Times]