Members of the Senate have gone on record on the topic of whether or not climate change is occurring as the result of human activity. As Wired‘s Victoria Tang observed, “United States Senators stood up for what they believed in today – the results aren’t pretty.” What she meant was that of the folks to whom we have entrusted  the leadership of what is arguably the most powerful nation in the world, almost fully half made it clear that, in Tang’s words, they “think climate change is some other species’ problem”:

The Senate, by a 50-49 vote with 60 required, rejected the amendment to a Republican bill approving TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline. Republicans control the Senate 54-46.

The amendment, offered by Senator Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, would have deemed that “climate change is real” and that “human activity significantly contributes” to it.

It’s no big surprise, I’m sure, that Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt is on the list of those voting against the amendment that affirmed the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is man made. As long as the fossil fuel industry shows him an adequate amount of love, he will always love them right back. Besides, doesn’t he stand up with the GOPers who claim they can’t legitimately have such an opinion because they’re not scientists? And unlike our President who has made it clear that he understands what goes into creating a scientific consensus, he’s part of that group of policy makers who want us to think that their lack of credentials excuses them from listening to any inconvenient scientific facts. As David Shiffman argues in Slate:

When politicians say “I’m not a scientist,” it is an exasperating evasion. It’s a cowardly way to avoid answering basic and important policy questions. This response raises lots of other important questions about their decision-making processes. Do they have opinions on how to best maintain our nation’s highways, bridges, and tunnels-or do they not because they’re not civil engineers? Do they refuse to talk about agriculture policy on the grounds that they’re not farmers? How do they think we should be addressing the threat of ISIS? They wouldn’t know, of course; they’re not military generals.

I’d like to hear Roy Blunt answer those questions.

Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, on the other hand, voted with the “yeas.” She accepts the scientific verdict about anthropogenic climate change although, to judge by her past performance, she also thinks that it’s okay to ignore inconvenient facts. Or maybe, do you think, the fact that she went on the record this week might prompt more responsible action in the future? After all, McCaskill is one of those folks who goes on interminably about the rather iffy threat posed to our children by our federal debt. Maybe she’s finally getting equally worked up over the incontrovertible threat to their future well-being posed by climate change?

This is not to say that there’s not been progress on the topic. The Senators did vote 59-1 to affirm that climate change is not a hoax. We can take comfort from the fact that it’s now so obviously ridiculous to deny the fact of climate change that all but one of the Senate’s highly-motivated Republican fossil fuel champions would have been embarrassed to affirm support that position in a public vote.

ADDENDUM:  Digby explains why the vote to affirm the fact of a changing climate was a total joke. Hint: “The leaders of the free world are cretinous imbeciles.”

*1st sentence edited slightly for clarity.

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives voted 266-153 to send a bill okaying the Keystone XL pipeline to the Senate. Twenty-eight Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill, thankfully, none from Missouri. However, our putative Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, is poised to join Republicans and support the bill.

Support for the Keystone XL pipeline is commonly attributed to its potential contribution to U.S. energy independence as well as claims that it would create jobs. Media reports usually, rather vaguely, summarize the motivations of the opposition to the pipeline in terms of “environmental concerns.” The fact that the environmental concerns can be substantiated while the job creation claims are seriously disputed is rarely mentioned, although most reporters currently are noting that energy independence is not as strong a consideration right now given the glut of oil on today’s market.

McCaskill has utilized the standard Republican Keystone XL talking points outlined above to explain her past votes to move the pipeline along:

I’ve long supported Keystone, because it isn’t a question of whether this oil gets produced-it’s just how it gets to market. Getting this project moving will mean creating jobs and business opportunities, and boosting America’s energy security. Those are goals we should all be able to get behind, and so my support and advocacy for this pipeline will continue.

I read this weak-kneed justification for environmental carnage and, along with actor Robert Redford, I feel compelled to ask if “we want to live in a country where expert reviews don’t matter and industry profits trump our families’ health?”  Each of the points McCaskill makes have been refuted time and time again, yet, like the most rote Republican ideologue, she offers them up yet again.

First, McCaskill implies that we might as well turn our back on the potential for environmental damage because the tar-sands fuel will reach the market no matter what. In fact, as an article in OnEarth, a publication of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) contends, the pipeline itself is essential to the economic viability and, hence, the continued production of Canada’s tar-sands oil:

There are two primary methods to move oil: by pipeline, which is cheap, and by rail, which is expensive. That cost differential is make-or-break for a tar sands business. The break-even price of tar sands oil is around $100 per barrel if transported by rail, according to Anthony Swift, a staff attorney at NRDC (which publishes Earthwire). Tar sands oil sells for $75 on a good day. So producers have to find a savings of $25 per barrel somewhere in order to make it worth the investment.

That’s why they’re so desperate for President Obama to approve Keystone XL-and why, in the pipeline’s absence, the narrow margins necessary to make tar sands extraction economical are starting to dissolve.

Furthermore, the issue goes beyond just getting the oil to the refineries. The pipeline has the potential to do real damage; it puts vital U.S. water resources at risk. Nor, incidentally, will it contribute appreciably to U.S. energy independence:

The fuel is dirty; the extraction and refining process is even dirtier. It’s so energy-intensive, in fact, that tar sands oil is barely economical to bring to market.

That’s why the industry is so desperate to build Keystone XL. The proposed $7 billion tar sands oil pipeline would run 2,000 miles across the American heartland, crossing the country’s largest freshwater aquifer to reach the Texas Gulf Coast. There, refineries would process a projected 830,000 barrels of dirty crude daily, most of them bound for overseas markets, with negligible impact on U.S. energy independence or gas prices.

And jobs? The most optimistic estimates – and I’m not talking about the dishonest estimates of 42,000 jobs that some Republicans are still putting out there – now put the number of jobs at 2,000-5,000 temporary jobs and far fewer permanent – the NRDC cites studies that claim that the pipeline will only create a few hundred permanent jobs. Before Senator McCaskill votes for this giveaway to a Canadian fossil fuel company, she had better explain to us why these more modest estimates are wrong – especially if she is really, as many suggest, planning to run for Governor next election. And while she’s at it, she should stop calling for President Obama to okay the pipeline just because the State Department has completed its assessment of the pipeline’s impacts – if you take the time to read the report, it isn’t really that rosy and, additionally, some of its conclusions have been questioned by the EPA.

While admitting that climate change is real, McCaskill has consistently behaved as if it is an inconvenient fact that can safely be ignored. Consequently, we should not be surprised that she is willing to do what seems to be politically expedient when it comes to Keystone XL – although she had better be careful. The political ground can shift with surprising rapidity. And as The Washington Post has noted, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to try to grandstand big-time when the issue comes to the Senate, but Democrats (other than McCaskill, that is) are indicating that they are ready for the showdown:

Both parties are girding for a rhetorical battle that could have far-reaching political implications. Democrats, for instance, plan to offer an amendment by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) that would force Republicans to go on record either acknowledging or denying that climate change “is real” and “is caused by human activities.”

They also will seek to force Canadian oil companies using the pipeline to pay into a federal oil-spill trust fund, a change Republicans are willing to include in the final bill, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said Friday.

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, plan to focus on Keystone’s potential to create jobs and foster U.S. energy independence, as well as its broad appeal to the general public.

After that “rhetorical battle,” if Democrats play their cards right, the appeal of Keystone XL to the “general public” might not be so broad. Nothing like  political fireworks to shed light on a misunderstood and hitherto misrepresented issue.

And indeed, Senator McCaskill is giving some indications that she might be aware that the political ground under Keystone XL is not as stable as she thought. Recently she  has indicated that those nasty Republicans had better not “overreach” in the bill that they send to the President to be vetoed:

While McCaskill differs with President Barack Obama and many in her party in backing the pipeline, she said that she would look closely at amendments Republicans might add to the pipeline bill.

If Republicans try to “basically take all power away from the EPA or do some other really damaging things to the environment through the amendment process,” she said, ” it will be a very difficult decision in terms of final passage.”

A hard decision? Really? Is this woman really a Democrat in any sense whatever?

I’ve just returned from a lovely and isolated vacation in the Canadian Rockies and, lo and behold, as soon a I got back to Missouri I think that I may have seen one of those proverbial winged piggies flying just over the spot where Hell froze over. What I’m talking about is the response to President Obama’s proposed new carbon emission standards. Of course that flying piggy isn’t from Missouri’s Senate contingent, all of whom seem to be oinking along the same old muddy road.

Start with Republican Senator Roy Blunt who couldn’t wait to go to bat for the energy industry sugar daddies who love him so generously. Blunt  has promised a heroic battle against these standards. He says they will – what else – “kill jobs and raise electric rates.” This, of course, is what Blunt says about anything that emanates from the Democratic administration that saved us from the GOP engendered financial crisis of 2008. The only thing different is that this time he tried to put some numbers to his claims of economic hardship to come, numbers that could be double-checked, and lots of very public merriment – at poor Blunt’s expense – ensued when a journalist at Roll Call did just that. Of course, I noticed some yahoo quoting those same figures in a recent letter the editor published in a little local newspaper so I guess Blunt knows how to please his main audience.

Democratic Senator Claire Mcaskill, on the other hand, is trudging along in her same old rut as well – the one that runs down the middle of any controversial road and avoids veering in any meaningful direction. She’s “withholding judgement while she studies the proposal and gathers public input.” Even before the standards were made public, she’s was a busy little equivocator:

I believe that climate change is real, I believe that it is dangerous, I believe that it is the result of man-made activity, and I trust science.

“I’m not happy about this,” she added, “but Missouri is incredibly coal-dependent for its energy needs. Which means that any aggressive changes in the availability of coal-fired electricity will have a direct impact on whether or not people with fixed incomes and small businesses can afford their energy bills.”

Gee, what does the destruction of the Missouri agricultural ecosystem, not to mention the planet itself, matter if it adds a few dollars to the old utility bill. Since our Missouri politicians are more than willing to subsidize farmers right now, perhaps they could extend some energy subsidies to those who really need them – if I remember correctly, the cap-and-trade bill McCaskill voted against a few years ago proposed to do just that. (McCaskill shares her reluctance to deal with the true costs of coal-generated electricity with Rep. Billy Long (R-7) who also wails about the potential higher utility bills. That alone ought to persuade her to rethink her rhetoric.)

But apart from the question of subsidies, don’t you think that a politician as savvy as McCaskill might figure out that it’s not an all or nothing proposition, that there are ways to mitigate the difficulties inherent in reducing the indirect subsidies that prop up coal use – maybe it’s time for the McCaskills in our Congress, those nefarious Red State Democrats, to take a chance, take a real stand, do the right thing and get real abut renewables instead of hemming, hawing and, in the end, pandering to a destructive status quo. The European Union is now producing so much energy from renewables that it has to figure out how to deal with structural problems caused by oversupply. Why can’t that be Missouri’s problem?

No, the piggy that seems to be sprouting a tiny, feathery winglet or two is Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-7). Usually Vicky is a good little soldier who marches in lock-step with the radical right wing, anti-science base. However, she’s on the record saying that the proposed rules “aren’t as bad as once feared,” and, unlike Senator Blunt’s rhetorical overreach, actually seems to be willing to point out that the rules permit the states some flexibility that can be used to mitigate their impact.

Of course, those may not be incipient wings on that pig, but just lipstick smears. Hartzler did make these statements at a panel discussion dominated by speakers from Missouri’s coal-dependent utilities who tried to sound reasonable and scientifically literate while doing their utmost to keep the renewable energy genie tightly under control lest it upend their their very profitable business models. As research into mechanisms that will store energy generated by renewable sources begins to show serious results, these folks don’t want to be left holding an empty bag. Among them are the same Ameren types who a few years ago proposed a surcharge for consumers who cut their energy use.

But still, it is something when righteous rightwing Vicky Hartzler, of all the politicians in the state, actually acts like she is aware of what the new regulations really propose to do – no matter whose bottom line she wants to protect. And unlike our Democratic Senator McCaskill, who seems to understand the issues even more fully, but who willfully ignores the call to action, Hartzler has struggled to give a coherent response, albeit one that befits an honest conservative. As Paul Krugman observes apropos the Republican reaction to the proposed regulations:

Claims that the effects will be devastating are, however, not just wrong but inconsistent with what conservatives claim to believe. Ask right-wingers how the U.S. economy will cope with limited supplies of raw materials, land, and other resources, and they respond with great optimism: the magic of the marketplace will lead us to solutions. But they abruptly lose their faith in market magic when someone proposes limits on pollution – limits that would largely be imposed in market-friendly ways like cap-and-trade systems. Suddenly, they insist that businesses will be unable to adjust, that there are no alternatives to doing everything energy-related exactly the way we do it now.

So maybe I was right. Maybe I did see a pig lift off, just a little bit. Perhaps Vicky Hartzler is more honest than I had thought. Given the clouds of lies and distortions  consistently rolling in from the rightward direction, that’s at least refreshing.

The situation: As per Think Progress, a staffer for climate denialist, big-oil loving James Inhoffe actually told the truth – and made a few oil lobbyists uncomfortable. The staffer wrote to “top oil and gas lobbyists” to express the Senator’s displeasure with the industry’s collaboration with the Obama White House on fracking regulations. The email didn’t pull any punches when it came to describing the cozy relationship between Republicans and the oil and gas industries:

Moving forward, we-your partners-would kindly ask for better coordination and communication from you to prevent the Obama administration from pulling similar stunts in the future.

Think Progress also notes that this “partnership” between Big Oil and the GOP is far from one sided. In return for the coordinated “attacks on behalf of industry interests,” GOP congressional types have pulled in a mighty monetary haul – literally millions – over the past few years.

The Missouri angle: Lately Missouri’s GOP Senator Roy Blunt has been highly vocal about rising gas prices – to an almost comic extent. He implicitly and explicitly blamed the Obama administration’s effort to regulate drilling in sensitive areas, subject the Keystone XL pipeline to environmental regulation, and to enact fuel efficiency standards. The underlying theme is, of course, nothing new for Blunt – over the years, he has managed to work it into almost every issue from jobs to taxation. He’s also done his best to insure that the industry keeps pulling down those big taxpayer subsidies – the icing on its highly profitable cake.

The high cost of doing business with Roy Blunt: Blunt has been well rewarded for the services he renders. According to the Center for Responsive Politics (via Think Progress), since 2006 he has pulled in $363,950 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industries. Only nine senators have higher totals for the same period and almost all of them are from big oil producing states or prominent in the GOP leadership (such as Mitch McConnell). It’s a sure thing Blunt isn’t getting the money just because he’s from Missouri. Missouri’s other senator, Democrat Clare McCaskill has received only $55,058 in Big Oil money since 2006. Wonder why Roy gets a bigger handout?

Just keep these facts in mind next time you hear or read statements by Roy Blunt haranguing us about energy policy or ranting about the effect of “job-killing” regulations on the oil and gas industries. Although, come to think about it, intelligent and careful regulation of the oil and gas industries could kill lots of highly rewarded senatorial jobs.      

You know how GOP Senator Roy Blunt’s been going on and on about how high gas prices are going to bring on the end of Western Civilization and it’s all Barack Obama’s personal fault? For a few months recently, it seemed that he couldn’t talk about anything else. He even tried to justify his don’t-let’s-tax-the-rich Buffet rule vote by evoking the bane of high gas prices. When he delivered the GOP weekly remarks in late April, all he could do was gas about the cost of gas, which was so high, he claimed, because Obama “focused on the wrong things” – like the dreaded “economic fairness.”

Well, guess what? Gas prices are falling. They’re falling, just as they rose in the first place, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with direct political intervention. Gas is a commodity. Its cost responds to global market forces and international events such as the relative stability of the Middle East and, in common with other commodities, can be exacerbated by rampant speculation.

Funny fact: the voice of today’s GOP, Fox News, after leading the chorus of Chicken Littles who claimed that the sky was falling because of high fuel prices, now proclaims the lower prices to be equally bad news. Go figure.

Do you think that Media Matters might be on to something when they speculate that Fox is just trying to help out the folks who are really worried about low gas prices – Republican strategists (and, I would add, politicians like Blunt) who “were hoping to reap the political benefits of high gas prices at the polls this year”? Media Matters’ Shauna Theel analyzes Fox’s new line:

Stuart Varney, the Fox Business host pictured at the top, tried to explain the claim that the recent gas price drop might be “BAD,” saying it may be “just a sign of a weakening economy.” The Wall Street Journal reported that one of the reasons for the drop in gas prices was the “softening economies in the U.S. and Europe,” along with easing tensions in Iran and changes in the oil market.

Note that Fox is now raising how worldwide economic factors are affecting gas prices, after spending weeks blaming Obama for the price increase since the president’s inauguration. Fox won’t explain that the extremely low price in January 2009 was a short-lived drop caused by the massive economic recession. In fact, last week on Fox News, Varney explicitly said with a straight face that the price increase since the bottom of the recession had “everything to do with” Obama, but the recent drop in gas prices “has nothing to do with” him.

So does the new Fox position mean that Fox fanboy* Blunt will follow suit? How will he pivot now that he can’t beat the same dead horse over and over any more – at least not in quite the same way. Will he take the way out offered by his Fox News cohort? Will he find some other way to stay the course? Or will he just pretend the topic never came up in the first place?

*Fox fanboy = Republican politician

Today GOP Senator Roy Blunt’s latest, typically sclerotic, effort at political jujitsu, a missive with the subject line “skyrocketing gas prices,” popped into my email box (it’s also available online here). Blunt, who has always reciprocated the affection that the fossil fuel industry has demonstrated for him via big chunks of campaign change, claims that the President has some how appropriated his own “”all-of-the-above” energy strategy – although Blunt’s actual proposals have been pretty short on “all” and long on “drill.” Alas, Roy laments, the president just doesn’t know how to go about achieving that goal. The proof of that contention, Roy claims, is demonstrated by the aforementioned “skyrocketing” prices:

During the three years since the president took office, gas prices have doubled from $1.85 to $3.59 per gallon — meeting his prediction that fuel prices would “necessarily skyrocket” under his administration’s policies.

With no end in sight, families and job creators in Missouri and nationwide are bracing for the prospect of paying $4 a gallon for gas by this summer.

What’s wrong with this? It is, to hear Blunt’s fellow conservative, George Will tell it, “preposterous”:

Blunt’s right that gas prices are higher than when George Bush left office in 2009, but the reason isn’t because Bush’s policies were better. It’s just a simple economic fact that energy prices  plummet when the economy tanks and ol’ George did a real number on the economy. Speaking of a recent downturn in gas prices, economics professor Jerry McElroy observed:

So goes the economy, so goes the price of oil, […] When the economy is booming, then the price of oil is rising – and vice versa, as we see today.

The bad news is that greater economic activity spurs demand which fuels speculation which, in turn, raises prices at the pump. Want to know how speculation works? Read this Think Progress report on how such GOP über-supporters as the Koch brothers play the energy markets. Then tell me that the surge in gas prices are the fault of the Obama administration.

The good news is that it’s possible to see the rising cost of gas as one more of several recent indications that the economy is, indeed, improving. And, as far as energy goes, thanks to President Obama’s successful application of the “all-of-the-above” strategy that Senator Blunt wants to take credit for, the United States, as USA Today reports, is:

…. enjoying a mini oil boom. It’s producing more crude oil and, for the first time in decades, has become a net exporter of petroleum products such as jet fuel, heating oil and gasoline.

None of this, of course, would be of interest to Senator Blunt, who, like the current crop of GOP presidential contenders, seems to have little interest in the way things actually work in the real world. All of which obviously leaves conservatives who, like George Will, still retain some small shred of integrity, grinding their teeth in frustration.

Claire McCaskill needs our help. Specifically, she needs some facts. Just listen to this video in which McCaskill gives us her opinion about the Keystone (KXL) pipeline controversy and you’ll see what I mean:

First point: McCaskill says she thinks development of the Keystone pipeline is inevitable: “it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when and where,” she says. And maybe she’s right. Certainly there will be lots of money spent to make sure KXL happens – we know that Big Oil can really grease those congressional skids. However, because grilling seems inevitable, one doesn’t, like St. Lawrence, have to turn over and ask the cooks to roast the other side.

One of the ways that Big Oil insures that they get their way is by spreading loads of BS, spurious research or outright falsehoods, disseminated by members of the Republican party with the aid of their tame media. Often, though,  poorly informed – or cynical – Democrats like Claire McCaskill will echo the GOP line du jour, as she does in the video above. To her credit, one must add, McCaskill is much more tentative than the usual congressional big oil spokesperson, which leaves me with the impression that she might be receptive to a critique of her remarks.

Second point:  Per McCaskill, if the pipeline doesn’t go from North to South, it’ll go East to West, remaining within Canada. She implies that such an eventuality would deprive the U.S. of oil that would otherwise contribute to our energy independence. It seems to have escaped her attention that the pipeline is designed to run North to Southern port refineries – where it will be sold to any country that’s willing to pay the price.

As Money Morning’s David Zeiler puts it:

The pipeline will connect refiners, as Money Morning Global Energy Strategist Dr. Kent Moors recently noted in his Oil & Energy Investor newsletter. The oil that reaches Gulf refineries could ultimately be consumed in the United States, but the finished products could just as easily be exported to China, Japan, or any other oil-hungry nation.

Energy companies will look to sell their oil to the highest bidder.

In fact, the United States is currently a net exporter of gasoline. In September, the U.S. exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline than it imported. …

Third point. McCaskill suggests we should make the most of KXL and take advantage of the jobs that it promises to create. Sounds reasonable enough until one examines the various job creation claims.  

The State Department calculates that it will create somewhere in the neighborhood of 6,000 temporary jobs – which, according to an independent assessment by Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, may be somewhat too generous. That study estimates that between 2,500 and 4,650 temporary, non-local jobs may result.

Given these numbers one can only look askance at the study commissioned by the company that seeks to build the pipeline, which estimates 20,000 construction jobs and 118,000 associated jobs in supporting industries. And, indeed, there are problems with these figures. As Money Morning explains:

… . That study used a “one person, one year model.” So if it takes 6,500 workers two years to build the pipeline, that’s 13,000 jobs, with the other 7,000 coming from supply manufacturers.

And if that math isn’t fuzzy enough for you, take a look at the calculations for the 118,000 spin-off jobs.

That number is based on the one person, one-year model in addition to something called the multiplier effect, which takes the capital costs of the project and feeds it into a formula. In short, these job numbers are about as reliable as a politician’s campaign promise.

Morning Money also remarks on the irony of GOP support for the mostly temporary KXL jobs given their oft-expressed contempt for the temporary jobs that resulted from stimulus spending.

But there’s more. The Cornell study cited above actually suggests that the pipeline might cost jobs:

… According to TransCanada, KXL [i.e., the Keystone Pipeline] will increase the price of heavy crude oil in the Midwest by almost $2 to $4 billion annually, and escalating for several years. It will do this by diverting major volumes of tar sands oil now supplying the Midwest refineries, so it can be sold at higher prices to the Gulf Coast and export markets. As a result, consumers in the Midwest could be paying 10 to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel, adding up to $5 billion to the annual US fuel prices. … those higher fuel prices for the Midwest could cost that region thousands of jobs. …

The Cornell study explicitly concludes that the job potential of KXL is nil and that the decision should be based on other factors. Yet according to KXL supporters, denying the pipeline permit is an outrage against the unemployed, a point that McCaskill seems to echo, albeit more gently than hardcore supporters.

Fourth point: McCaskill seems to believe that she’s being pragmatic when she concludes that KXL is inevitable because we will need to depend on oil for a very long time. That’s what I call a self-fulfilling prophecy – all it takes to make it come true is a cabal of politicians who take their orders from Big Oil, their enablers in the go-along-to-get-along crowd, and those who can’t take the time to work out all the issues.

That’s why we have to help Claire McCaskill get on top of the Keystone XL controversy. I assume none of us want our congresspeople to decide on issues from a poorly informed position any more than we want them to base their decisions on purely political considerations. Nor do we want our Senators to go with the flow and claim that the destination was always inevitable.

Claire McCaskill can support the Keystone pipeline if she wants – there actually seems to be some evidence that the environmental costs are a bit exaggerated – but I hope that when the time comes, if she does so, she’ll be able to make a real case for it, not just concede defeat and repeat a few false GOP talking points.