Wait a minute, we’re confused. Koster the Democrat is going on hunting trips with Republicans and attending secret gay donor conferences with the former head of the Republican National Committee? Why all the secrecy? Good loyal Democrats are openly for gay rights, right?

Washington Blade:

Gay former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman was among the speakers at a secret LGBT donor conference that took place over the weekend in D.C. and was attended by advocates and high-ranking public officials.

Others listed as participants at the event — but not as speakers — were Patrick Murphy, the former U.S. House member who led the way for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and is now running for Pennsylvania attorney general, and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster. Read more….

Writing for The Heritage Foundation’s blog, Lachlan Markay reports, “Explosive video of a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency comparing his enforcement philosophy against oil and gas companies to Roman crucifixions was removed on Thursday by the environmental activist who had uploaded it. ‘This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by David McFatridge,’ reads a message on the video’s YouTube page. . . . The YouTube video’s owner appears to be the same David McFatridge listed as an activist for the radical environmental group the Sierra Club. McFatridge has been active in a number of anti-hydraulic fracturing campaigns. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who spotlighted the video on Wednesday in a speech on the Senate floor, drew connections from Armendariz’s comments to the EPA’s campaign against hydraulic fracturing, and branded the agency’s efforts a ‘war on fossil fuels.’”

In an editorial today, The Wall Street Journal blasts the EPA for these comments: “It’s no secret that the bosses at the Environmental Protection Agency hate fossil fuels. But few are as candid as Al Armendariz, the regional administrator who says the agency’s ‘general philosophy’ is to ‘crucify’ oil and gas producers. That’s how EPA chief Lisa Jackson’s point man for Texas, Oklahoma and other south-central states put it in 2010 lecture. Mr. Armendariz explains that his staff’s ‘philosophy of enforcement’ is ‘like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.’ The point is to ‘make examples’ of alleged lawbreakers. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe released video of the speech on Wednesday as part of his investigation into the EPA’s now-discredited claims of water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing, including in Parker County, Texas. In that case Mr. Armendariz’s shop targeted Range Resources, a driller that has since been exonerated, and his remarks about executions raise questions not only about his own work but the EPA’s larger impartiality and judgment.”

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 Idiot…Democrat leaders claim they’re concerned about the high prices Americans are paying at the pump, but they continue to demonstrate that they’re not interested in changing some basic policies that could produce more and cheaper American energy.

According to The Hill, “Senate Democrats will hold firm and reject House Republican demands to include approval of the Keystone oil pipeline in transportation funding legislation, their leader said Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would not in any way help Republicans move Keystone approval across the finish line.  ‘Personally, I’m not — I’m not one of the conferees — but personally I think Keystone is a program that we’re not going, that I am not going to help in any way I can,” Reid told reporters. ‘The president feels that way. I do, too.’”

Meanwhile, another Hill story reports, “Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted House Republicans on Tuesday for pursuing ‘fairy tale’ energy policies he said are aimed at scoring political points going into the election. . . . Salazar, echoing comments by the president, stressed that there are no quick-fix solutions to high gasoline prices, which have soared since December . . . .” It’s worth recalling that four years ago when Salazar was a Democrat senator from Colorado, he blocked a bill that would have allowed more offshore drilling as gas prices increased. But Salazar objected to the bill, calling more drilling for American energy “a phantom solution.”

To summarize, we have a president that blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, a Senate Majority Leader who says of the pipeline “I am not going to help in any way I can,” and an Interior Secretary who refers to projects like Keystone backed by Republicans as “fairy tale” energy policies and “phantom solutions.”

Yet other Democrats are not so intransigent. Last week, The New York Times reported, “President Obama is finding himself increasingly boxed in on the Keystone pipeline fight as more Congressional Democrats are joining Republicans in backing the project, which has strong labor support and could generate significant numbers of jobs in economically hard-hit states.” Early last month 11 Senate Democrats voted for a Republican amendment “to approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and provide for environmental protection and government oversight.” Recently, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said, “I’m fighting for construction of the entire Keystone pipeline” and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) declared, “I’m for the pipeline.”

Last week, 69 Democrats in the House voted for a transportation bill that included a provision that would allow construction of the full Keystone XL pipeline to move forward. According to the NYT, “Representative Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat who voted for the House measure, said he would be happy to vote to override a veto if needed. He said: ‘I think the president has made a very serious mistake here. I’m still supporting the president. But we have to do what’s right.” Asked by The Times if he’d support such a bill Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) said, “I would vote for it, yes.”

It’s time for President Obama, Harry Reid, Ken Salazar and other Democrats leaders to stop listening to environmentalist pressure groups and start listening to Americans who want more and cheaper domestic energy, not to mention the growing chorus of Democrats who support the Keystone Xl pipeline. The Keystone pipeline would allow us to import less oil from foreign countries, more efficiently move American oil, and create tens of thousands of jobs. It’s a no-brainer, and it’s long past time for Democrat leaders to stop blocking it.

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The Hill reports today, “An Obama administration official apologized this week after a Senate Republican released a video in which the official compared enforcement of environmental laws to crucifixion. ‘I apologize to those I have offended and regret my poor choice of words. It was an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws,’ Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz said in a statement that the Daily Caller obtained Wednesday night. ‘I am and have always been committed to fair and vigorous enforcement of those laws.’

“The apology came several hours after Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a vocal critic of the EPA, released a 2010 video in which Armendariz stressed the importance of ‘making examples’ out of companies that violate environmental laws. He compared his enforcement philosophy to that of Roman soldiers who crucified villagers in towns they wanted to conquer. ‘I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement. And I think it was probably a little crude, and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’m going to tell you what I said,’ Armendariz says in the video. ‘It is kind of like how the Romans used to conquer the villages in the Mediterranean, they’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere and they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. Then that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.’ . . .”

“Inhofe highlighted the comments Wednesday during a Senate floor speech. ‘His comments give us a rare glimpse into the Obama administration’s true agenda; no matter how much President Obama may pretend to be a friend of oil and natural gas, his green team constantly betrays the truth that the Obama administration is fully engaged in an all out war on hydraulic fracturing, and indeed all fossil fuels,’ Inhofe said.”

Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and the tens of thousands of jobs it would create, “I am not going to help in any way I can,” adding, “The president feels that way. I do, too.” And on Tuesday Interior Secretary Ken Salazar accused Republicans of supporting “fairy tale” energy policies.

It’s amazing the extent to which the Obama administration and Democrat leaders in Congress are impeding American energy development. As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said recently, “For years, Washington Democrats have had the same rigid opposition to expanding domestic energy exploration. The only people they seem to listen to are extremists. . . . [W]ith gas prices at about $4 a gallon, it’s time somebody called them out on it. Ten years ago . . . Democrats voted down a bill to open up a tiny area in Alaska known as ANWR to drilling. They relied on the non-argument that it would ‘take too long’ to get the oil to market. Every Democrat who was asked about it said the same thing; that it would take too long to get the oil to market. I’ve got two pages of quotes from Democrats saying it would take at least seven to 10 years to get the oil to market. Well, here we are, 10 years later. In some places gas now costs three times what it did in April of 2002. The U.S. still imports half its oil. ANWR is still off-limits. And if you ask Democrats why they oppose more domestic exploration, they’ll tell you the same thing they did 10 years ago.”

The revealing comments from Obama’s EPA official, his Interior Secretary, and his ally in the Senate, Harry Reid tell an important part of the story as to why Washington still can’t approve a commonsense project like the Keystone pipeline, even with Americans paying ever-higher gas prices. It’s long past time for the Democrat status quo on energy to change.

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