A Floor Exchange Of Ideas...and Receipts

By Ryan Grim

(The Politico)  Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) had been looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for a few days, armed with a stack of “a few dozen” gas receipts that constituents have sent him, said spokesman Todd Lindgren, as well as a letter on gas prices he wanted to hand deliver to her.

He got his chance today when he saw the speaker on the floor. He confronted Pelosi with the letter and the receipts and, Lindgren said, she took them off his hands. “My understanding is that there was a brief silence and then she said, ‘Thank you,’ and kept going,” said Lindgren, who works in the district and wasn’t there for the exchange.

Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that instead of filing his receipts with the speaker, “he should vote for Democratic proposals today to say 'Use It or Lose It' to Big Oil and the 68 million acres of leased public lands onshore and offshore … they are sitting on, and for legislation today that would direct the Bush administration to use the authority it already has to go after speculators who are driving up the price of oil.”

Hammill was unenthusiastic about Chabot’s proposal. “Drilling in the Artic Refuge, which Congressman Chabot calls for in his letter, will only save his constituents less than 2 cents per gallon in the year 2025 if we start drilling today. The congressman should abandon the president’s failed energy policies and work with Democrats to address skyrocketing energy prices,” he said.

Lindgren said he wasn’t sure how Chabot was voting on the measures Hammill raised but said that “certainly the congressman is willing to work with everyone on this issue. What he wants is lower gas prices.”

His letter after the jump.
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