Boehner gas gaffe creates opening
By: Jonathan Allen and Darren Goode
April 26, 2011 07:45 PM EDT

Democrats think Speaker John Boehner stepped in a tar pit when he tried to dance around a question about taxing Big Oil, and now a White House concerned about its own vulnerability to rising gas prices is working overtime to make sure he's stuck.

The Ohio Republican left the door open to hiking taxes on oil and gas companies during a Monday night interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, saying Congress “certainly ought’ to take a look at it.” By midday Tuesday, the Democratic communications machine was pumping out an easily refined message: Agreed.

"It is almost too good to be true, but gas hitting $4 per gallon seems to have finally caused Speaker Boehner to see the light on the insanity of providing subsidies to profit-soaked Big Oil companies," New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic message maven in the Senate, said in a statement.

It's little wonder that Democrats were ready to pounce when they saw an opportunity to box Boehner into either defending oil companies or adopting Democratic-backed subsidy cuts. President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill already know they face serious voter backlash if gas prices don't settle down before the 2012 election.

Obama has addressed that vulnerability in the past, and a new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests he's right to be worried. Sixty percent of independents who are feeling pain at the pump say they definitely will not back Obama for reelection, the survey found.

As Republicans prepare a series of hearings and votes intended to put heat on Obama over gas prices during the spring and summer months, Democrats hope the Boehner slip-up will give them a more even playing field on the issue. But Democrats still haven't explained how cutting profits would lead to lower — rather than higher — prices for consumers, and there's little chance that Boehner's half-dodge of an answer will turn the tables in the president's favor if gas prices remain high.

"Everybody's entitled to have a bad day. And he had a bad day," GOP strategist Mike McKenna said of Boehner's remark.

If nothing else, it turned Tuesday into a field day for Democratic politicians.
"I was heartened that Speaker Boehner yesterday expressed openness to eliminate these tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry," the president wrote to Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Republicans, worried about losing their advantage on an issue they have been hammering away on, sought Tuesday to make clear that they're not a bit interested in eliminating the tax breaks — which they say would lead to higher gas prices because oil companies would simply pass on their higher costs to consumers paying at the pump.


"The president's latest call to raise taxes on U.S. energy is as predictable as it is counterproductive," McConnell said in a statement. "If someone in the administration can show me that raising taxes on American energy production will lower gas prices and create jobs, then I will gladly discuss it. But since nobody can, and the president’s letter to Congress today doesn’t, this is merely an attempt to deflect from the policies of the past two years."

Tuesday's partisan blow up did nothing to lower the price of a gallon of gas, but it did reinforce two political realities of which both parties are well aware: There's almost nothing Washington can do to affect short-term gas prices, and voters become furious when a dollar doesn't get them as far as it used to.

Boehner's camp says the speaker won't raise taxes and that his intentions were misconstrued when he tried to avoid being pinned into defending oil companies. It's a sensitive topic for Republicans: Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) took bipartisan criticism after apologizing to BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill last year.

"The speaker made clear in the interview that raising taxes was a nonstarter, and he’s told the president that. He simply wasn’t going to take the bait and fall into the trap of defending Big Oil companies," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. "Boehner believes, as he stated in the interview, that expanding American energy production will help lower gas prices and create more American jobs. We'll look at any reasonable policy that lowers gas prices. Unfortunately, what the president has suggested so far would simply raise taxes and increase the price at the pump.”

But the transcript shows that Boehner was open to the idea of raising taxes on oil companies. Asked whether he would favor eliminating some of the subsidies, he replied, "We certainly oughta take a look at it. ... We're in a time when — when the federal government is short on revenues. We need to control spending but we need to have revenues to keep the government movin'. And they oughta be payin' their fair share."

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and the likeliest source to take on any Republican who seeks to raise taxes, told POLITICO that he's satisfied that Boehner would not approve of a net tax increase.
It won't be long before Republicans are back on offense on energy policy. They are expected to bring a bill to the House floor next week that would require the Interior Department to decide within 30 days whether to grant offshore drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. For permits that weren't approved before a moratorium was imposed last year, Interior could extend the window by 15 days twice.

Two more energy bills approved by the House Natural Resources Committee could be considered as early as the following week.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:33 p.m. on April 26, 2011.