House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) waded into presidential politics criticizing the Bush administration’s policies as Republican are casting themselves of agents of change. “It’s difficult to understand how somebody who voted with the administration 90 percent of the time can project themselves as an agent of change,” he said in reference to Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. Hoyer criticized job growth saying , “It’s been one of the slowest eight years in recent history. You’d have to go back to the Hoover administration to see worse…” He also compared the job growth numbers in the last eight months of the Clinton administration with those of the past year.

He said that a comprehensive energy bill in the House is a possibility in the upcoming week. The House Republicans have been clamoring for their “All of the Above” energy bill to be brought to the floor since the session adjourned in August. One of the principle complaints has been the moratorium of new oil and natural gas drilling offshore. Hoyer said that the Republicans have been passing moratorium language for the last eight years without striking it in conference.

Hoyer said he had spoken with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson about the government take over of the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Hoyers said that he agreed that this action was a necessary one at this point and time.

“Democrats are for drilling,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D- Md.) Hoyer explained that House Democrats agree with the public’s desire to devote resources to oil drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), oil reserves in the continental United States, and the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (not to be confused with Arctic National Wildlife Refuge–ANWR– in Alaska.) Hoyer said that the disagreements between Democrats and Republicans arise from where to drill for more oil. “If there’s a place to drill, let’s drill,” he said referencing acres of the OCS that have already been leased to oil companies. Democrats don’t necessarily want to drill where Republicans want, he said.

Hoyer said that while the price of oil per barrel has gone down almost $30, the price at the pump has not gone down to where the pain is not felt by his constituents. Hoyer also suggested that drilling in ANWR was something that Republicans are enthusiastic about, but that oil companies may not be. “I don’t know that oil companies have contacted me about ANWR, I don’t know, maybe they are not interested in drilling there,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer also implied that Republicans are simply paying “lip service” to the causes of renewable and alternative sources of energy, when he cited a quote from Maryland Republican Roscoe Bartlett who was quoted in the Politico as saying of Republicans, “They’re giving lip service to [alternative energy]…The only thing they emphasize is drilling.”