Switching on Dean Heller’s Coal Powered Light

This profile of Dean Heller, my congressional representative and yours, is just embarrassing. Unfortunately, history shows that politicians like Heller continue to be elected and re-elected upon their ability to deliver catch phrases that sound good to their constituents rather than upon actual performance. It’s the Bush school of politics–as long as you seem authentic, you’ve got a future in politics. (That whole seeming authentic thing doesn’t explain Gibbons’ gubernatorial victory but there are always exceptions to every rule).

What continues to bother me about politicians like Heller, is that they don’t even seem to understand the impact or the logic behind their own votes. Voting for S.U.Vs and coal-powered light switches at the expense of environmental technology investment that could actually benefit Heller’s rural constituents more than lower gas prices (a theory which Desert Beacon shoots big holes in). What on earth would be wrong with thinking about the long-term future of rural Nevada in economic and environmental terms? Isn’t part of being a lawmaker thinking about what should happen in the future? Wouldn’t that include efforts to stabilize and supplement the state’s mining economy? Honestly, I don’t understand the pride in flouting the future–its really at the expense of the state’s future.

Why aren’t tax breaks for oil corporations considered pork or assigned the label of corporate welfare? Heller remarks that continuing the current level of tax breaks for oil companies encourages “to explore for more reserves,” however, is that what really happens? As Steve Mufson points out in a 2005 Washington Post editorial (that hasn’t lost its relevance by any stretch of the imagination), oil corporations, like any highly successful corporation, always have their own self-interests in mind:

Exxon Mobil upped its capital and exploration budget last quarter, but it spent nearly as much buying back its own shares, bolstering its stock price. This quarter, the company said, it will spend even more — $5 billion — repurchasing shares. If only drivers could fill their tanks with stock certificates.

All that share repurchasing really worked well for Exxon which earned a record-breaking profits of $1,3oo per second (11.7 billion) in the second quarter of 2007–thanks in large part to rising oil prices. Heller’s position on this defies logic.

And of top of all that, Heller believes in subsidizing oil corporations more than extending health care the Nevada’s uninsured children through SCHIP.

With recession imminent if not already in existence, you wonder if Heller will be so supportive of the oil corporations.  It seems like its only a matter of time before Americans will need corporate scapegoats again.  Sub-prime loans and the deregulated bank and investment industries might be working at the moment, but horizons are sure to expand.

Similar Posts:

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• CD 2 Candidate Jill Derby Storms DailyKos
• Credit Card Industry and Dean Heller Treating Consumers with Contempt

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