After reading The Monitor’s staff article on Filemon Vela’s premature departure from congress, it mentioned the congressman’s lackluster list of accomplishments. Ten years in congress and his two major bills according to Govtrac, he initiated two major bills:
• H.R. 4482 (116th): Protecting America’s Food and Agriculture Act of 2019.
• H.R. 3375 (115th): Javier Vega Memorial Act of 2017. Not bad for 10 years, nothing earthshaking, one bill.
• Part of his membership on the House Agriculture Committee, and the other for a fallen Border Patrol Agent.
The article fails to mention how much vacating his post in this way will cost the taxpayers, creating a special election to fill the remainder of his term so he can go on to his lobbying position. I guess this guy really cares so much about his constituents that he jumps ship and leaves the taxpayer holding the bag, so he can move on and use his influence in Washington.
Vela’s early departure is a slap in the face of the taxpayers, but then again he spent his last years representing the migrants from Central America, an allegiance that the Democratic Party still has not fully explained to the taxpayers of the United States.
I guess jumping ship is a Democratic thing; his buddy “Con Mi Gente” Vicente Gonzalez abandoned his district to run for Vela’s position. So much for the “gente” of District 15. Mr. Gonzalez, my hopes are that you both become minor footnotes in South Texas politics for the loyalty you and Vela have shown to your constituents, otherwise known as “We the People” of these United States, not Central America.
Jake Longoria
Mission
Oil policy
condemned
The April 1 edition of The Monitor featured a story from the Bloomberg News Service pertaining to high U.S. gas prices. In this article President Biden blamed the increase in gas prices on Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Per the article, Biden also blames U.S. oil companies for not producing enough oil to meet our nation’s needs.
Biden’s comments earn him the April Fool’s Pinocchio Award for the most outrageous lie of the day. America’s oil producers know the truth as to why gas prices are at record highs. On Jan. 20, 2021, newly inaugurated President Biden signed an executive order suspending the permit of the Keystone XL pipeline. That executive order killed thousands of U.S. jobs and stopped the flow of 800,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
On his second day in office, President Biden signed a second executive order that suspended thousands of oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters. Since then, the Biden administration has slow-rolled the permitting of more than 4,000 oil and gas leases, as reported in a March 2022 Wall Street Journal article. That same article states that the administration has not conducted any auctions of oil/gas leases on federal lands and waters, making President Biden the first president in two decades not to authorize these auctions.
America was energy independent, exporting oil and gas on Jan. 20, 2021. Today Biden begs the rogue nations of Venezuela and Iran to sell oil to the U.S.
Robert Bonds
McAllen
