House Minority Leader Boehner Flips

For Immediate Release:

June 14, 2010

Contact:

Linden Zakula

314-367-2004

House Minority Leader Boehner Flips, Says Big Oil Should Pay for Oil Spill, but Congressman Blunt Stands With Big Oil

Even as GOP Leader Calls on Big Oil to be Held Responsible, Blunt Maintains his 14-Year Record of Protecting Big Oil

St. Louis, MO - This weekend, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) announced that Big Oil should pay for the entire environmental and economic cleanup in the Gulf so that taxpayers aren't stuck with the bill [ABC This Week, 06/13/10]. The announcement from Boehner, who succeeded Congressman Roy Blunt as House Republican Leader, is a change of position for the Congressman who originally supported a liability cap. [TPMDC, 6/10/10].

Congressman Blunt has also changed his position since the spill began. Originally he explained, "The current liability cap [of $75million]unless there's some criminal activity that no one's aware of is going to be the current liability cap so no matter what you do, it's there. People can have all kinds of discussions on what the cap should be but that doesn't really matter for right now..." [RCGA Speech, 05/18/10]. However, it wasn't long before he began to draw political fire and tried to change his position by introducing legislation that would increase, but still maintain a cap for how much Big Oil would have to pay [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 05/20/10]. In fact, with Minority Leader Boehner now saying "no" to a Big Oil bailout, Congressman Blunt is becoming one of the few in the Congress to continue to support plans that could leave taxpayers on the hook for some of the damage in the Gulf. [HR 5356, Introduced 5/20/10]

"It shouldn't be a surprise that Congressman Blunt, who twisted arms to give Wall Street the $700 billion bailout, is willing to bail out Big Oil too," said Linden Zakula, Robin Carnahan's campaign spokesperson. "After 14 years of calling Washington home, Congressman Blunt has forgotten that he works for Missouri and we are reminded of that every time he takes on a corporate special interest fight as his own."

Congressman Blunt's record of standing with Big Oil has helped him become an all-time top ten recipient of BP campaign contributions in the House of Representatives and earned him over $1 million from Big Oil and energy interests. During his time in Washington, Congressman Blunt has worked against efforts to stop price gouging at the pump, while working to ease restrictions on oil companies wanting to do more offshore drilling. And Congressman Blunt's support for Big Oil has not waned since the oil spill in the Gulf Coast as he has worked to protect limits on their liability. For his efforts, Congressman Blunt received a campaign contribution from Halliburton, one of the companies associated with Deepwater Horizon at the time of the disaster, after the spill began. [HR 1252, Vote 404, 5/23/07; HRes 897, Vote 352, 6/29/06; HR 3893, Vote 518, 10/07/05; H.R 6108, 2008; Kansas City Star, 05/07/10; Opensecrets.org; Fec.gov; AP, 6/4/10].

Robin is running for the U.S. Senate Seat currently held by U.S. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) who is retiring. She is currently in her second term as Missouri Secretary of State where she has worked across party lines to protect consumers by standing up to big institutions and getting more than $10 billion returned to wronged investors, and to cut red tape for small businesses so they can save resources and create more jobs. A breast cancer survivor with a background in business and law, Robin also still oversees her family's cattle farm in Rolla, MO. For more information on Robin's background and values, visit: www.RobinCarnahan.com

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