“Republican congressional candidates owe it to voters to denounce these shadowy Right Wing front groups like Americans for Prosperity and demand they stay out of their districts unless they disclose their donor list,” reads a statement to TPM from DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer, “If they refuse to do so, they are sending a message to voters loud and clear – they stand firmly on the side of these shady Washington front groups and their Right Wing agenda of outsourcing American jobs overseas and allowing foreign corporations like British Petroleum or Huge Chavez’s Citgo to influence American elections.”

And the push back isn’t just coming from the DCCC. State parties and affected Dems are also expected to ramp up their activities later this week. The first example comes from Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), in this web video.

President George W. Bush announced today that he will release oil from the country’s emergency reserves in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. The reason? Because an oil company asked, of course.

From Reuters:

“Last night we got a request from a company doing business here in Louisiana and we met that request,” Bush told reporters, referring to a request by Citgo Petroleum Corp, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company.

“Oil was released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and we will continue to do that upon request by companies,” Bush said after being briefed on recovery efforts in Louisiana.

For months, House Democrats have been calling (to no avail) on the Bush administration to tap part of the petroleum reserves to ease fuel prices at the pump. Following Wednesday’s announcement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had some choice words for a president more receptive to oil companies than to Congress:

By ignoring the needs of consumers but responding to the request of oil companies, it is clear that the Bush-Cheney-McCain energy decisions are made with only one thing in mind — Big Oil.

Not that Pelosi’s plan to use the U.S. emergency cache is anything but a band-aid on a larger problem. But GOP criticism that the resource should be saved for emergencies only rings hollow considering that scores of Republican have spent the last month in Washington screaming from the rafters about the dire need to address the issue with an offshore drilling vote.

What do you call a debate in which neither side has a leg to stand on?