I tend to believe that that although the 2nd congressional district, which Republican Todd Akin represents in the U.S. House, is conserative, he  is far, far to the right of many of the Republicans who live in the district.  This impression has been confirmed by several people who claim that he managed to get elected the first time around as a “stealth” candidate, who carefully parsed his words in order not to frighten the more moderate–sort of like the way Bush talked about compassionate conservatism while planning to gut the New Deal as soon as possible.      

Well, I guess Akin thinks it is time to lay low and crawl under his rock again.  In response to a letter I wrote about the stupidity of expecting expanded oil drilling–in environmentally fragile areas yet–to fix high gas prices, I received the following, bland, and careful to the nth email response:

Dear     :

Thank you for contacting me regarding the protection of our nation’s natural resources and native species.

I share your concern that we wisely steward the breadth of resources in our vast land. From the salmon that inhabit our rivers to polar bears in Alaska and the gray wolf in the continental United States, our nation is home to many threatened or endangered species.

As an engineer, I believe that we can cultivate domestic energy sources while fulfilling our responsibility to conserve and steward the resources we have been given.  As we consider how to best use and protect our environment, minimizing negative impacts and protecting native species and their habitats should always be a priority.

Again, I appreciate having the benefit of your views on these important issues. Please do not hesitate to contact anytime I may be of assistance.

Sincerely,

W. Todd Akin

Member of Congress

 

While one can, by looking carefully,  deduce from this letter that Akin might favor expanded oil drilling, it is also possible to assume that he would never do so if there were to be any possible environmental harm as a consequence.  Doesn’t he say that protecting “native species and their habitats” is a priority?

Akin also says nothing about where he thinks we can safely “cultivate domestic energy resources.”  Off-shore in fragile ocean habitats perhaps?  Or ANWR? Although he reminds us that he is an engineer, and hence wise in the ways of oil-drilling, he tells us nothing about how he believes we can cultivate those aforementioned energy sources while “fulfilling our responsibility to conserve”.

All told, I can’t figure out why he even bothered to respond if this is all he has to say–I already knew that there were several endangered species and don’t need him to tell me about it. So, seeking reassurance about the nature of his stewardship, I went to the Website, OnTheIssues to see what Mr. Akin does when he gets to demonstrate his stewardship by voting on energy issues in the House:

Here is a quick rundown on how this responsible environmental steward voted on some key energy issues over the past few years:

*  Voted NO on tax incentives for energy production and conservation. (Jun 2008)

* Voted NO on tax incentives for renewable energy. (Feb 2008)

* Voted NO on investing in homegrown biofuel. (Aug 2007)

* Voted YES on criminalizing oil cartels like OPEC. (May 2007)

* Voted NO on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jan 2007)

* Voted NO on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006)

* Voted YES on passage of the Bush Administration national energy policy. (Jun 2004)

* Voted YES on implementing Bush-Cheney national energy policy. (Nov 2003)

* Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001)

* Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001)

Based on this record, Akin, the wise steward, doesn’t seem to have ever encountered an oil industry giveaway that he didn’t like.  He also really seems to want to insure we have no alternative to oil–he couldn’t even vote for investment in homegrown biofuel–an issue that might be be a real winner for a Missouri Republican who should be equally conscious of those big agribusiness dollars.

This tendency would explain the fact that the Campaign for American Freedom (CAF), in their report “Energy Independence: Record vs. Rhetoric” (Dec. 2006), gave Akin a 0% score which indicates almost complete opposition to energy independence.  In order to compute this score CAF:

examined the voting records of current U.S. Representatives and Senators on … Key pieces of legislation [that] included goals for independence, and subsidies for the development of alternatives compared to subsidies for drilling and digging. We then compared votes on these issues with campaign contributions from major oil interests. The results show strong inverse correlations between political contributions from big oil and votes for energy independence

.

Could you have surmised any of this big-oil bias from the email from Akin that I posted above?  And the worst of it is, given the insane result of the recent Democratic primary (he will be opposed by Bill Haas in the general election), he will probably be slipping around for the next few years, hiding under the same old rock that has served him so well.