July 29, 2008 05:16 PM UTC
Udall Strikes Back on Energy, Iraq
37 Comments- by: Colorado Pols
UPDATE: The Udall campaign just sent out the first of what they promise will be daily “double-takes” on questionable statements made by Schaffer during yesterday’s debate (follows), leading up to its broadcast this Sunday. Up first? Schaffer’s head-scratching quote: “I didn’t cut a deal with the Iraqis, with the Kurds. That’s not why I went there.”
Looks like Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall got the memo, as the Pueblo Chieftain reports:
Congressman Mark Udall came out swinging Monday against GOP challenger Bob Schaffer in the second of nearly a dozen planned debates in their U.S. Senate race.
Udall, a five-term congressman, repeatedly attacked Schaffer on his energy stance, calling the former congressman an oil executive who likes to see high gas prices.
Schaffer countered that Udall’s attack is just what the American people are tired of hearing – politicians bickering while motorists pay more than $4 a gallon at the pump…
“They heard a promise to continue a commitment to restricted energy development. Listen, I’m just in favor of putting every option on the table and pursuing every strategy to lower energy prices,” Schaffer said. Udall said Schaffer is more beholden to the same oil companies for which he once worked, adding that the former congressman only mentioned renewable energy once on the floor of the U.S. House during his eight years in Congress. [Pols emphasis]
“There’s a clear contrast here,” Udall said. “I’m clearly somebody who’s going to work across the board to drive down gas prices. Congressman Schaffer talks about the situation we’re in, but he doesn’t acknowledge that he played a key roll in getting us in this situation.”
Udall said there’s no need to open up more off-shore drilling sites when there already is millions of acres that could be developed.
He said the nation could drive down prices today if it cracked down on oil speculators, and released oil in the nation’s gas reserve…
“Look, we have to drill, but we ought to drill in the 68 million acres that we have right now. I’m going to force the oil companies to do that, and then we have to take all these other steps, invest in alternative vehicle technology, take a fresh look at nuclear, push wind and solar to the limit.
“We have to drill, but that isn’t the ultimate answer,” he added. “That’s how we get to a point quickly to drive down prices, and then in the long term we do the other things that I’ve been talking about for 12 years.”
Apparently much more on top of his game than in the previous debate–where Udall was underprepared for what has been roundly agreed subsequently to be a cheap and dishonest shot from Schaffer–Udall struck a fresh blow of his own. The Chieftain concludes:
Udall, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he’s traveled to Iraq twice to visit U.S. troops, adding that Schaffer only went there once, and that was to cut an oil deal.
Schaffer denied that was his only reason for going to Iraq. [Pols emphasis]
He said he did help Aspect Energy negotiate an agreement with the Kurdish Regional Government over the objections of the U.S. State Department, which had a policy against such contracts. [Pols emphasis]
Udall said that contract could make it harder for the U.S. to leave Iraq gracefully because it could add more tensions to the region. Kurdistan long has wanted to break away and form its own nation.
More coverage of yesterday’s debate in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. A poll follows.
For Immediate Release Contact: Tara Trujillo
JULY 29, 2008 303.820.2008 (o)
720.333.3425 (c)
DEBATE DOUBLETAKE, VOLUME 1:
SCHAFFER’S DISHONEST DENIAL ABOUT OIL DEAL-CUTTING IN KURDISTAN
First in a Fact-Check Series Leading Up to the Fox 31 Debate Airing on Sunday Night
Yesterday afternoon, Senate candidates Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer participated in the second debate of the Senate campaign, taped at Fox 31’s studios in Denver. The debate will air for Colorado voters on Sunday night at 10pm. That’s a lot of days to wait, but it’s still barely enough time to fact-check all the dishonest and misleading statements made by Schaffer during the course of the debate.
As a public service, the Udall campaign will be cataloguing those “debate doubletake” moments every day between now and the debate’s Sunday night airing.
First up, Schaffer denies cutting an oil deal with the Kurds in the middle of the Iraq War, despite major news coverage around Colorado, reporting on the deal and the fact that the State Department considered such deals detrimental to the U.S. mission in Iraq.
From the Debate:
Udall: This is again where there’s another difference. I’ve been to Iraq twice to visit our troops, to support them, and to learn about what’s happening on the ground. Bob Schaffer has been to Northern Iraq once. He went to Northern Iraq to cut a deal with the Kurds, against the express wishes of the State Department. [Schaffer crosstalk: That’s not true.] He undercut our ability to stabilize that country, to bring the Iraq war to an honorable close, [Schaffer cross talk: You are wrong again, Mark.] so we can take our attention back to the central part of the war on terror, which is Afghanistan. That’s where Bin Laden is.
Schaffer: Being untruthful about the reality is exactly what people are sick and tired of.
Host Ron Zappolo: Where was he untruthful?
Schaffer: It was untruthful in that I didn’t cut a deal with the Iraqis, with the Kurds. That’s not why I went there.
WAIT…WHAT?!
Here Are the Facts:
Iraq News Monitor: Schaffer met with Kurd Parliament members to discuss “investment projects” and opportunities to “work in the Kurdistan region.” “Adnan Mufti, the head of parliament in Kurdistan, met with U.S. Republican Congressman Bob Schaefer [sic], a member of the delegation with Aspect Energy, with the leadership of Mrs. Leapole Einoy to the Kurdish parliament. In the meeting, with the presence of a number of Kurdish parliament members, they discussed Kurdistan’s economy and politics. Aspect Energy showed interest in participating in investment projects in various fields. The company’s delegation expressed their gratefulness for the opportunity to visit and work in the Kurdistan region. [Iraq News Monitor, 11/27/06]
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: “Schaffer’s Kurdish oil deal causes problems for Iraq.” “An oil contract Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer helped negotiate in Iraqi Kurdistan is one of several production deals the U.S. State Department has flagged as problematic for Iraq and its attempts to establish a national oil policy…Schaffer confirmed Wednesday he was one of several Aspect Energy executives who visited Kurdistan in November 2006 and laid the groundwork for the company’s oil deal with the Kurds…According to a June 23 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Aspect Energy’s oil contract and roughly two dozen other similar deals have proven a point of contention between Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government…John Fleming, a spokesman with the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the U.S. government has always asked that energy firms conduct business with Iraq’s federal government and not other entities in the country.” [Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, 7/9/08]
Pueblo Chieftain: “Schaffer-made oil contract may impede Iraqi unity.” [Pueblo Chieftain, 7/13/08]
Pueblo Chieftain: Schaffer “under fire” for helping company win contract with Kurds. “Schaffer, who’s vying against Democrat Mark Udall to replace retiring GOP U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, has come under fire this month for his role in helping a Colorado oil company win a contract from the Kurds, one of many that President Bush and the U.S. State Department warned U.S. companies against entering into.” [Pueblo Chieftain, 7/18/08]
Denver Post: Schaffer defends Kurd leases he “helped obtain.” “Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer said Thursday that oil leases he helped obtain for a former employer in the Kurdish region of Iraq didn’t undermine that country’s stability, and he strongly defended them as a boon to the Kurds as well as U.S. interests in the region.” [Denver Post, 7/18/08]
Tune in tomorrow for Debate Doubletake, Volume 2.
And be sure to watch Fox 2031 with Ron Zappolo on Sunday night at 10pm to experience the Doubletake Moments for yourself!
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what were his other reasons? Or was he still just making shit up?
When Bob Schaffer travels abroad, whether it’s to undermine U.S. policy for his oil company or whitewash labor abuse by his Saipan masters, there’s always one thing he fits into his busy schedule: parasailing!
A news report on Kurdish tourism has the answer:
… with proceeds to be spent on tourism promotion!
are they at the beach? Are they at the oil patch? Are they at the swingers club?
The Romans built baths there and today families escape the heat. Down in a gorge the springs issue forth, the Jordan River cuts beneath trees and all kinds of high humidity flora and fauna.
A relative few steps up and you are in hot, dry terrain.
It is a 16 mile hike from just outside the park down into the sandstone canyons. You crisscross the North Fork of the Virgin river about 500 times in sixteen miles. There are 12 campsites for overnight camping and it is beautiful. The movement of the river creates a mist that nourishes ferns and all sorts of hanging plants. The term for this flora is hanging gardens because it hangs on the canyon walls. You get used to the sound of the river but in some spots the water from the surface instead of running over the edge to make a waterfall actually runs behind the rock so you get this gurgle sound. Time stands still and you are enveloped in this fragile separate environment that blocks out the world for a while. It is one of the top ten hikes in my life.
and my eyes are wet.
Lord, I miss the west.
Well, off to mow another section of lawn, it’s not 90/90 today.
Anyone who listens to the environmentalists who are backing Udall knows that they and he want $8 gas because they think it would “save the planet” as Nancy Pelosi so fanatically contends.
Udall is a Pelosi Dem, and they are so well off that they don’t care if millions are impoverished by their high-gas prices policies.
They are using their nonsensical anti-drilling policies to rally the hard left know nothings, but that strategy is starting to fall apart.
Schaffer has facts on his side, and the voter is looking for someone who’s not locked into obsolete 12-year-old beliefs.
Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Udall, are all for anti-drilling policies that will destory America and not save the planet.
If laws and regulations that prevent new drilling off California were eliminated, new crude could hit the market in a year, and if other drilling bans were lifted by Congress, we’d have more crude in about 2 years.
The simple act of Congress say, next month, could send crude to $60 in only a few weeks.
Al Gore is making a lot of money on carbon trading, and he doesn’t want his party to end, but the voters do, and they may get their way.
The environmentalists and their lackies in Congress are on the run.
Whatever it is, it must be some powerful shit.
in Tennessee. These people like to hate liberals and their hatred exposes the stupidity of their reasoning. “Oh I’m special because I hate liberals. That makes me a big man”.
It is easy to blame the bogey man for our mutual problems because then you don’t have to give up your ATV. Too bad this fool can’t see what a joke his hatred is.
That’s all he is. And what does he base his (ahem)logic(ahem)? Nothing. Because God forbid the Oil Companies are trying to line their pockets by speculating the price up. No, the Oil Companies have been pawns in this game. It can’t be their fault. Oh and suddenly he cares about the Middle Class. He agreed with Bush when Bush vetoed SCHIP. I’m guessing he’s either a kid, a crotchety old man or some NIMBY guy who lives in Highlands Ranch. Fine, try to blame Environmentalists for all your problems, while the Oil Companies continue to make record profits of the backs of all of us. I don’t drive an ATV and I feel it. So, I change things so that I can take the bus to work more. It’s fine and it’s a change that I can make. Hell, I WANTED to make that change. But some people can’t even do the small thing, so let’s blame anybody who ever talks about sharing any kind of burden to make things right in this country. Even a small one. One way or another, we’re going to have to do something. I’d rather make a small modification now than a big one later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…
Now cut out the stupid “Nazi” shit.
You think Udall wants $8 gas? What are you smoking? Ok, I get it, you just hate Democrats, but try and make your attacks at least somewhat believable.
the oil companies. Let’s be honest.
Dick Cheney
I don’t think Democrats will get anywhere saying, “Yes we need to drill, but there’s plenty of places to drill already without opening up ANWR or offshore sites.” Mostly because it’s not true. The fact is we don’t have enough oil anywhere in America to drill our way out of high gas prices.
This is the Republican “big lie” of 2008, that if we just opened up ANWR and offshore drilling we could bring down gas prices. Time delays from exploration to delivery aside, which are significant, the truth is that even including those places America has only 3% of the world’s oil supply. If we put a rig on every square foot of land in the US, gas prices still wouldn’t budge. It’s supplies coming from OPEC countries that control the price of oil, not our drop in the bucket.
Udall has it partly right that the only real way out of this energy crisis is through across the board solutions like alternative fuels. We can also create more fuel efficient cars through off-the-shelf technology and increased federal fuel economy standards. The free market has already led the way on this (look at Ford and GM), it’s time for government to catch up.
But the line about drilling where we can already drill? I don’t have any polling data on this, but I just don’t think it’s gonna fly with the American public. Especially with every Republican in America saying our richest oil supplies are in places where Democrats won’t let us drill – which has the added benefit of being true, a unique approach for that party.
But Republicans aren’t telling the truth when they say that tapping ANWR and offshore supplies would lower the price of gasoline. That’s what we should call them on, not this crap about drilling everywhere else first. Don’t counter a lie with a lie, counter with the truth.
We do need to continue drilling, for now, and we do have enough space/leases available for now. And our richest oil supplies may not be where we’ve put them off limits. Offshore drilling in the Gulf is legal, leased, and underway – the GOP only wants us to open up “the margins” along the coastline. And the Naval Petroleum Reserve has more oil than ANWR. And ANWR may not have nearly the reserves estimated; the numbers are based solely on projections from other Alaskan oil fields.
But you’re right – we have to be clear that drilling can’t solve our problem, it can only patch us through until we get a different and better solution.
There is more oil under the NPR-A than there is under ANWR, just 100 miles away. And 80% of the available oil offshore is in areas already open for leasing.
Yet the oil companies don’t drill.
It may be cheaper to drill in some of the off-limits areas of the OCS due to water depth, but even the oil companies say the cost/benefit threshold was at about $60/bbl, which we have long since passed. Yet they aren’t drilling because (according to them) they lack manpower and equipment to do deep water drilling at any depth.
All good points, Phoenix and Thilly, that only reinforce the argument that more drilling in America will not have any effect on gas prices.
However, saying that oil companies already have access to 80% of the oil in the Gulf doesn’t answer Republican arguments that opening up coastal drilling would give us access to more oil and at prices far lower than deep-sea drilling. It would.
Saying that ANWR may not have the capacity we think it would, which is true, also doesn’t answer Republican arguments that “at least it’s something, but Democrats won’t let us get it!”
What we have to pound home is that no amount of drilling in America will change the cost of gas. We just don’t have enough oil – anywhere – to make a difference. Saying that we should make companies drill where they’re already legally allowed to gives in to the Republican argument that we can solve this energy crisis through drilling.
We can’t.
What we should do is say as much, and then bridge back to a strong Democratic message: renewable fuels and fuel efficiency standards. That’s our home turf, and we win when we make the issue renewable energy. We can talk about opening up the SPR to help in the short run, but we lose when we talk about drilling because everyone knows Democrats don’t like to drill.
As a side note, deep sea rigs take years to develop and cost a lot. If I were an oil company looking four or five years down the road I’d have serious reservations about making that investment. If calls for a “Manhattan Project” for renewable energy take off, then I may never pay back that rig no matter how much oil I get from it.
I did some research too last weekend and the U.S. cannot possibly drill its way out of the oil crisis. We are entering the end of the oil age unless shale can be practicalbly accessed.
Even if all of the continental shelf were opened immediately for drilling, all of the deep sea rigs are under contract for the next five years. We don’t have nay equipment available. Second, it usually takes four or five years after the test drilling before the oil is actually produced and refined. We are looking at probably around ten years before any of the contienental shelf reserves that are off limits today can be taped. Even then, as Jeff Bridges stated above, it will make no difference in oil prices.
Right now the U.S. consumes 21 million barrels of oil each day while the Chinese consume 7 million and India another 3 million. China’s consumption is expected to rise to our level by 2020, only twelve years from now. At those consumption rates as well as Europe and other nations, the world’s oil reserves of approximately 700 billion barrels will be exhausted in the next thirty years.
What we need is an “all hands on deck” research effort funded by the federal government. We did it to make the atom bomb in WWII and to put a man on the moon in the 1960’s and we can do it again in the field of energy. If this isn’t done we will see internaitonal conflicts for control of the dwindling oil reserves. One can make the case that that is the reason President Bush took us into Iraq. Since the Republicans won’t do anything about this because they only believe in free market solutions, it is time for the Democrats to advocate this policy.
Are you sure you’re a Republican? 😉
I’m definitely an Obama supporter, but this is basically what John McCain has been advocating (though not with the vehemence of his call for more drilling) with his Lexington Project. I hope that the Obama campaign sees that this is going to be the big issue as long as gas prices stay high, and that they come out with a clearer plan for energy independence.
I thought that McCain’s plan, as far as his TV ads go, is to drill, drill, drill! It’s the same message that Shaffer has glommed on to.
The ad Defenders of Wildlife is running against Musgrave would be a great response to this “drill everywhere” message – go after the Republicans for opposing increase fuel economy standards and protecting big oil price gouging! It’s not drilling that we need, it’s a new energy economy and higher fuel standards, two things Republicans stand in the way of.
could work as a broader D message.
it seems to get harder and harder to stay one. The right-wing ideologues refuse to budge on any issue and have ruined the party.
I’m encouraged. Thanks for your contribution.
They’ve dropped off the page when it comes to Bill Orr and Schaffer’s oil deal with the KRG. There was plenty of impassioned defense during the Mariana Islands discussions, but they’re nowhere to be found on these scandals.
Has Dick’s paid blogger budget dried up?
Schaffer will lose this election. The fact that he lied about being discouraged from going to Iraq to secure this deal, and has continued to lie now, will not sit well with Colorado voters.
He doubles down on his lies.
Add in the lies about arrangements for his Mariana Islands trip and whether he was paid to serve on the board of a criminal enterprise that bilked taxpayers for millions, and you’re right, even mainstream conservative voters will have trouble holding their nose and voting for Schaffer.
Schaffer had nothing to do with Aspect getting into the renewable energy business. Superior Wind Energy was formed in 2002, long before Schaffer went to work for Aspect, and was sold to an Australian company in 2006, while Schaffer was employed at Aspect.
So he had nothing to do with Aspect getting into the business, but very well might have had something to do with them getting out of it.
Exactly. Schaffer lobbied Congress (despite never having registered as a lobbyist nor Aspect disclosing it did any lobbying) for wind-energy tax credits. Because Schaffer was unsuccessful getting Aspect what it wanted, the company dumped the investment. That’s the extent of his involvement in wind energy.
Ethanol, on the other hand, involved voting for a farm bill and an energy bill that included miniscule ethanol credits, among many, many other things.
thought to ask the Schaffer campaign why he did go to Iraq?
720-377-1600
but I’m going to do just that tomorrow. I suggest everyone does, if nothing else, it will give the staffers in the office something to do.
Congressman Mark Udall definitely DID NOT come out swinging Monday against GOP challenger Bob Schaffer in their second debate in their U.S. Senate race. Udall is exactly like Obama. He says nothing, and only promotes change… but never really says what he would do to change things. He is all talk, and no action. Furthermore, he is anti-democracy and anti-workers rights by supporting the deceptive Employee Free Choice Act.
Were you at the debate 6thcdwatcher? I wasn’t at the debate on Monday, however, I was at the 1st debate where Schaeffer absolutely KILLED Udall. Udall just stood at his podium stunned. Schaffer is much smarter than I thought. I too, wish they would have discussed the card check issue. Maybe at the next debate… that ought to get Udall fired up.
the dishonesty and false attacks. What we had been seeing for the last year was Bob 2.0, and at that debate he reverted to Bob 1.0, and got a nasty smack across the face from Vince Carroll for having done so.
At the Monday debate, I hear Bob flip-flopped again claiming he was terribly bipartisan, and Udall mopped the floor with Schaffer’s slimy butt.