The campaign, dubbed “Drive for 25? seeks to educate voters on a provision with the U.S. House GOP budget — known as the Ryan budget, because of its author U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) — that moves Medicare from its existing system to one that is privatized and capped. The DCCC notes that on Sunday, even former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) opposed the Ryan budget, referring to its changes in Medicare as “radical” and “too big a jump.”

Latham, along with 20-some additional members of Congress who voted in favor of the Ryan budget, have been targeted by the DCCC previously with radio ads, phone calls and email messages. A transcript of the current robocall is as follows:

Hi, I’m calling from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calling about Congressman Tom Latham’s vote to end Medicare.

You’ve paid into Medicare for more than 25 years and deserve the Medicare benefits you’ve earned. Under the Latham plan, Medicare ends and you’ll have to save about $182,000 more to pay for your health care. Where will you get $182,000? Everyone agrees we must cut spending and tighten our belt, but Latham has made the wrong choice. Ending Medicare to pay for subsidies for Big Oil making huge profits or tax breaks for the ultra rich! That’s not right.

Please call Congressman Latham at (515) 232-2885 and tell him to keep his hands off our Medicare!

Although the DCCC has indicated that these measures are being used against Latham in his Congressional District, a spokesperson for the organization has not yet clarified for The Iowa Independent if the District being targeted is his current area or the area he hopes to represent following the 2012 election.

Latham has indicated that he will be moving into the newly established 3rd District to face Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell in 2012. If he chose not to move, Latham would have been pitted against fellow Republican incumbent Steve King in the newly established 4th District. Democrat Christie Vilsack is exploring a possible run against King.

So, if the DCCC is targeting voters in Iowa’s existing 4th Congressional District, such calls are likely to be no consequence in the 2012 election because Latham won’t be a candidate on that District’s ballot.

In addition to the calls, the DCCC has also launched an activist website, DontEndMedicare.com, with downloadable protest signs, a virtual phone back and other tools for supporters.

“As ranking member of the Agriculture Subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, I have a responsibility to ensure speculators are not exploiting oil supply fears to make big profits,” Boswell said in a prepared statement.

“The CFTC determined in 2008 that Wall Street speculators were increasing their positions in energy markets to capitalize off of political unrest in heavy oil-producing nations. Energy prices drive up the cost of goods across the board — from input costs on the farm to the food on the kitchen table. I am calling for a hearing to make sure that Wall Street and Big Oil are not purposely driving up prices once again to make a quick buck on the backs of the middle class and small business owners who are hit the hardest when the price of gas skyrockets.”

Boswell and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont co-authored a letter to Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) and General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas). Both GOP leadership members represent states that hold a special interest in the oil industry’s success, but Boswell remained optimistic that his request would be given serious consideration.

“The Agriculture Committee has a history of investigating oil speculation when gas prices reach record levels, regardless of what party is in charge,” he said. “It is my hope that Committee leadership will take the issue of rising gas prices seriously, as well as our hearing request, and allow daylight to be shed on this important issue.”

In addition to Boswell and Welch, the letter to leadership was also signed by Democratic U.S. Reps. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Terri Sewell of Alabama, James McGovern of Massachusetts, Bill Owens of New York, Joe Courtney of Connecticut and Larry Kissell of North Carolina.

The full text of the letter appears below:

Dear Chairmen Lucas and Conaway:

We are writing to request the Committee conduct a hearing to examine the recent rise in energy prices, particularly for oil and gasoline. The American public wants reassurance that these high prices are completely attributable to market forces and not due to speculation or manipulation in the futures or spot markets for energy.

The Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has a long history of examining rises in energy prices and how they impact the agricultural sector. Since 2006, the Committee has held three hearings on this issue, under both Republican and Democrat majorities, which only further demonstrates the bipartisan commitment of the Committee to examine drastic price fluctuations in the price of oil.

In the last four months, oil prices have risen to date by 25% and we have not yet reached the summer peak season when oil and gasoline prices experience further increases. On March 31st, the House Committee on Natural Resources held its own hearing looking into rising gasoline prices. At that hearing, witnesses including Mr. William P. Graves on behalf of the American Trucking Association and Mr. Michael J. Fox, Executive Director of the Gasoline & Automotive Service Dealers of America raised concerns about continuing speculation in today’s energy markets.

Given the increase in energy prices and continued concern about speculation in energy markets, we believe it is appropriate and imperative that our Committee conduct its own hearing into energy prices and bring in representatives from the CFTC and the Department of Energy who can give us their views regarding what is occurring in the energy markets. We look forward to working with you to bring such a hearing to fruition in the immediate future.

Sincerely,

Rep. Leonard Boswell (IA-03)
Rep. Peter Welch (VT)
Rep. Tim Walz (MN-01)
Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Del. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Northern Mariana Islands)
Rep. James McGovern (MA-03)
Rep. Bill Owens (NY-23)
Rep. Joe Courtney (CT-02)
Rep. Larry Kissell (NC-08)

In an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Boehner had this to say:

It’s certainly something we should be looking at. We’re in a time when the federal government’s short on revenues. They ought to be paying their fair share…Everybody wants to go after the oil companies and frankly, they’ve got some part of this to blame.

A Boehner spokesman quickly characterized his boss’s comments as an attempt to avoid a trap sprung by ABC’s Karl:

The Speaker made clear in the interview that raising taxes was a non-starter, and he’s told the president that. He simply wasn’t going to take the bait and fall into the trap of defending ‘Big Oil’ companies. Boehner believes, as he stated in the interview, that expanding American energy production will help lower gas prices and create more American jobs. We’ll look at any reasonable policy that lowers gas prices. Unfortunately, what the president has suggested so far would simply raise taxes and increase the price at the pump.

The dial-back didn’t stop President Obama from firing off an arch letter to Boehner, writing that he “was heartened that Speaker Boehner yesterday expressed openness to eliminating these tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said that, after Boehner’s comments opened a crack in the Republicans’ armor, Democrats will waste no time in pursuing legislation to end the subsidies. In a Wednesday press conference, he said that his party will push consideration of President Obama’s proposal to repeal Big Oil tax breaks as early as next week. “There’s no necessity for these subsidies,” he said. “The companies have broken all records for profits.”

Oil industry insiders have lashed out at the Democrats’ attempt to end oil subsidies as job killers. Reuters reports:

“This is a tired old argument we’ve been hearing for two years now. If the president were serious about job creation, he would be working with us to develop American oil and gas by American workers for American consumers,” the American Petroleum Institute’s chief economist John Felmy said.

And yet, if first quarter trends continue through the rest of the year, Exxon alone stands to net ten times as much in profits as the entire industry receives in subsidies. From January to March, despite skyrocketing gas prices for consumers, Exxon made $10.65 billion in profits. This is the highest quarterly profit Exxon has reported since it made $14.83 billion in the third quarter of 2008.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee responded to the flare-up by capitalizing on the media hype over the impending British royal wedding, snatching up the domain roilwedding.com (“R-Oil wedding,” an admirably reaching pun on “royal wedding”). The DCCC is using the site as a tongue-in-cheek online petition congratulating the “marriage” of Boehner and other Republicans to oil interests.

On the faux-Facebook page, Buck sets his relationship status as “it’s complicated” with “Big Oil,” writes a message on the Tea Party’s Facebook page and sends a message to Karl Rove, Sarah Palin and “Big Oil” that says, “Miss you guys! Hopefully I’ll be around in 2011! LMAO!! :).”

Buck is in a tight race with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), though polling among likely voters puts Buck ahead. Buck has consistently said he believes climate change is not caused by human activity, earning him the ire of environmentalists. The League of Conservation Voters has spent record amounts of money on the upcoming midterm elections, and Buck has been one of its targets. The group put him on its Dirty Dozen list, which catalogs lawmakers in key races with poor environmental records.

Andrew Restuccia will be covering one of the biggest stories of the summer and fall (and beyond): the battle in Washington over energy and environmental policy. Andrew’s spent the past two years at Inside Washington Publishers, where he served most recently as an associate editor at Energy Washington, getting inside scoops on the dealings within the energy industry and the broader environmental policy debates. He’ll be starting at TWI on Monday.

Check back over the next few weeks for their reporting and analysis.

Not so.

Testifying before Congress yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told lawmakers that the administration supports lifting the cap, but the $10 billion figure is “inadequate.”

And by “inadequate,” he didn’t mean that it’s too low (some have suggested that there should be no liability cap at all), he meant that it’s too high. Lawmakers, he said, have to be “thoughtful” not to impose a cap that pushes smaller oil companies out of business just because they can’t afford the drilling insurance.

“You don’t want only the BPs of the world to essentially be the ones that are involved in these efforts,” Salazar said.

And  if that sounds familiar, it’s because Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the very same thing on the Senate floor yesterday when he blocked passage of the Democrats’ bill. In fact, Inhofe invoked the White House when he objected.

“We need to increase the caps,” Inhofe said. “I understand that. But I do agree with the President — he left that [amount] blank — because we don’t know just how high that should be. … Big oil would love to have these caps up there so they can shut out all the independents.”

It’s not an argument that sponsors of the $10 billion proposal find persuasive. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), for example, asked Salazar why the size of the company should influence spill liability when even the smallest operation could potentially devastate an offshore ecosystem.

“If you could create the potential risk that we have in this [Gulf] spill, and you could be the cause of this spill, does the size [of the company] matter?” he asked. “In essence, we’d be saying [that] if you’re smaller, you should have less liability. And I don’t think the American taxpayer would believe in that.”

Salazar responded vaguely, saying he’ll work with Congress “to find a number that is not an arbitrary number.”

Meanwhile, you can bet that the White House will continue blaming Republicans for blocking the same proposal that Obama himself opposes. In other words, they’ll be seeking the political gain while opposing the policy.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) (WDCpix)

Last week — as thousands of barrels of oil were gushing each day from an uncapped well on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico — Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) took to the chamber floor to say that she didn’t want “to minimize” the severity of the disaster. Then she spent the next 20 minutes doing just that.

[Environment1]The slick, Landrieu said, contains “only 3 percent” thick emulsified crude that exists as “a very thin layer” — only as thick as “a couple of strands of hair.” The 5,000 barrels spilling out each day, she noted, represent “less than one-fourth of 1 percent” of the nation’s daily consumption. Relative to that requirement “the industry spill rate is quite low,” she argued.

“It is more risky to import our oil in tankers than it is to drill for it offshore, even considering this disaster that we’re dealing with today,” Landrieu said. “Retreat is not an option. … We must continue to drill.”

On one hand, that message has stumped environmentalists, government watchdogs and some of Landrieu’s own Democratic colleagues, who are pointing to the ongoing disaster as clear reason why policymakers should abandon any plans to expand offshore drilling and focus instead on cleaner energy alternatives. On the other, the oil industry is a powerful economic engine in Louisiana, and hasn’t been shy about showering the state’s congressional delegation with campaign cash. Indeed, the more than $758,000 Landrieu has accepted from the industry over her Capitol Hill tenure ranks 10th among all active lawmakers. Even following the worst drilling disaster in decades — even though the spill rests in Landrieu’s backyard — clean-energy advocates aren’t counting on the Louisiana Democrat for any serious support on drilling reform.

“There’s a reason why [corporations] contribute money into the political process,” said Tyson Slocum, head of the energy program at Public Citizen, a government watchdog group. “They’re giving money, not out of charity, but for the promotion of their own self interests. It’s with the explicit intention of getting something in return.”

Landrieu’s office this week denied that the industry’s financial backing has swayed her position on energy policy. “Campaign contributions, from energy companies or from environmental groups, have absolutely no impact on Sen. Landrieu’s policy agenda or her response to this unprecedented disaster in the Gulf,” a spokeswoman told OpenSecretsblog, which noted that Landrieu had received more campaign money from British Petroleum — the owner of the leaking Gulf well– than any other lawmaker in the last election cycle.

Landrieu, of course, is hardly the only defender of the oil industry, nor is she alone in downplaying the severity of the spill. Louisiana’s other upper-chamber lawmaker, GOP Sen. David Vitter, has also taken steps to protect the industry in the wake of the disaster. Vitter has called to increase the flow of money from Washington, to delay the Senate’s investigation into the spill, and to relieve BP of some of the responsibility for immediate cleanup.

“BP is spread too thin in trying to both cap the well and remediate the damage along the coastline, producing an inefficient and ineffective response,” he said last week in a statement.

Vitter has accepted more than $766,000 from the oil and gas industries in his career, placing him just ahead of Landrieu among active lawmakers.

There are others. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), after flying over the spill last weekend, came to the conclusion that the damage posed by the accident “is not Armageddon.”

“The oil spill is certainly bad. And it’s terrible that there’s a spill out there,” Taylor said. “But I would remind people that the oil is twenty miles from any marsh. The spill starts breaking up in smaller pieces naturally.”

Not everyone agrees. Several of Landrieu’s Democratic colleagues on Tuesday introduced legislation that would force oil companies to pay more for damages following oil spills like that afflicting the Gulf. Sponsored by Sens. Bill Nelson (Fla.), Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), the bill would hike the industry’s liability cap for such damages from $75 million to $10 billion.

“Oil companies must be held responsible for every cost related to an oil spill,” Lautenberg said, “and that includes both the environmental and economic damages.”

In Landrieu’s eyes, such damages are a small price to pay for the privilege of harvesting the oil and gas from within our own borders.

“No one has ever claimed, including myself, who’s an unabashed proponent of the industry, that drilling is risk free,” she said.

“Expanding offshore oil sites when you already have tens of millions of acres currently available to the oil industry for exploration that they’re not using, to me, is something that really will not help a comprehensive energy policy for this country,” the Maryland Democrat said in an interview with PBS Wednesday. “We’re talking about a minuscule amount of oil, and the risks here are great.”

Cardin, of course, has good reason to be wary of any plan that would allow new drilling in the mid-Atlantic. Maryland’s economy hinges largely on the health of both the Atlantic and the Chesapeake Bay, where agricultural run-off already poses an enormous threat to the crab and fishing industries.

We’re talking about the fishing industry. We’re talking about watermen. We’re talking about tourism. We’re talking about property owners. It could have a major impact on the economy of the Mid-Atlantic.

The comments put Cardin sharply at odds with a number of other Atlantic-coast lawmakers, who see new drilling as a boon to the local economy. Just to Cardin’s south, Virginia Sens. Mark Warner (D) and Jim Webb (D) both applauded Obama’s proposed expansion this week. Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) told reporters yesterday that the White House announcement melds with “our plan to truly make Virginia the energy capital of the East Coast.” And Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms said a drilling expansion will help tourism by keeping gas prices low.

“These things are miles offshore,” Sessoms told The Washington Post, referring to the oil rigs that could pop up off of Virginia’s coast. “They won’t be seen.”

But neither those arguments nor the claims that more underwater drilling will lead the country to greater energy independence has convinced Cardin that an expansion is worth the environmental risks that could ruin Maryland’s economy.

“There are places,” he told PBS, “that are too special to risk offshore drilling.”

What a difference a year and a half can make.

With President Obama today proposing to loosen the ban on offshore drilling, Pelosi just issued a statement that largely eludes the topic altogether. She applauds, for example, tomorrow’s scheduled announcement to finalize vehicle fuel-efficiency standards. And she celebrates (without specifics) the Democrats’ efforts “to lower our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.” Only afterward does she get into the drilling controversy. It’s not quite the same tone she used with the Republicans:

The Obama Administration’s initiative regarding drilling on public lands must ensure that any offshore and onshore plan proceeds in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner. Taxpayers who own these resources have been historically shortchanged from the huge profits received from drilling on public lands, and must receive a fair return in the future.

The American Petroleum Institute is objecting, and the major oil companies potentially on the hook are among the biggest of the big lobbying powers in Washington: BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. They will “hide behind the independent oil companies,” predicts Erich Pica, an analyst for Friends of the Earth, “and threw in everything but the kitchen sink.”

These five companies spent  a combined $59.4 billion in lobbying in 2008 alone, according to figures from the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.org, these five companies have plenty of money to throw in. Several prominent former Democrat legislators and staff members lobbied on behalf of these companies in 2008 — including former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux (Shell), former Hill staffer Holly Bode (Exxon), who previously worked for Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.); and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Paul Brathwaite (BP).

But Big Oil’s ability to prevent the plugging of this loophole could be waning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) targeted royalty relief in her “first 100 days” agenda when Democrats took control of Congress in 2007. The House approved a rollback, but it narrowly failed to gain Senate approval. Since then, pro-oil Republican Sen.Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Wayne Allard of Colorado have been replaced by green Democrats, Tom and Mark Udall, respectively. Pencil in Minnesota’s DFL Senator-in-waiting Al Franken in place of former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, and as Daniel Weiss of the Center for American put it, ”Big oil faces an uphill climb.”