Congress, circa 1912. Or maybe a GOP meeting of some sort. Can't tell.

Library of CongressCongress, circa 1912. Or maybe a GOP meeting of some sort. Can’t tell.

The House of Representatives is run by Republicans these days, because that’s what the American people want. We chose to maintain a majority of Republicans, meaning that Republicans get to do whatever they want. If the GOP House gets reelected, that’s a mandate. If the president does, it isn’t. That’s math. That’s politics.

And leaders of the House Natural Resources Committee know what needs to be done: We need to get rid of those flim-flammin’ environmental regulations so we can finally extract some gol-dang fossil fuels! From The Rassafrassin’ Hill:

The House Natural Resources committee will devote more attention to environmental reviews and their effects on advancing energy development in a new subcommittee next Congress. …

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Reader support helps sustain our work. Donate today to keep our climate news free. All donations DOUBLED!

“Moving jurisdiction of [the National Environmental Policy Act] to a specific Subcommittee will allow us to better review and address how this law is being implemented and the impacts its bureaucratic red-tape has on jobs, our economy and access to public lands and resources,” Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a Thursday statement.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which deals with energy development on federal lands, has pushed the Obama administration to expand oil-and-gas drilling. All applications for such drilling projects must go through a NEPA assessment.

Yes. Go get ’em, guys. (They are all guys.) Just look what that no-good, fossil-fuel-hating Obama has done to fossil fuel extraction:

[protected-iframe id=”ecb96061d3449e3db6093b6292975663-5104299-34907067″ info=”//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/static/modules/gviz/1.0/chart.js” width=”470″ height=”400″]

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Up, up, up! The United States recently hit a 14-year high in oil production; the natural gas boom has been nauseatingly documented.

But not up high enough, apparently. Why not? Maybe this graph, showing another set of data, might help explain.

open secrets contribution data

That shows contributions from the oil and gas industry to members of Congress.

Up, up, up!