Selling Richard Pombo

Don't know who Richard Pombo is? He's the chair of the House Resources Committee which has been given the task of saving $2.5 billion over the next five years. Since Conservatives love to cut spending, Pombo has settled on a way to increase revenue instead: selling drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And in an effort to push this solution, the only alternatives he's come up with are even worse:

In a draft of the budget bill, Pombo offered a list of alternatives that might force even ANWR's most ardent opponents to pick drilling in ANWR instead.

The document proposes selling public park lands in Alaska, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Texas for energy and commercial development. The 15 areas are mostly smaller national parks that honor war heroes or historical sites.

It also proposes raising money by selling advertising on Park Service brochures and maps, seeking commercial sponsors for Park Service auditoriums, museums and trails, and allowing gas and oil leasing on the outer Continental Shelf.

It's almost be worth it to visit Shell Oil Presents Yellowstone National Park if it meant keeping the Arctic Wildlife Refuge intact.

My solution? Sell advertising on Senators and Representatives! They are already beholden to big business cash, so why not put a big Shell Oil symbol on the guys who take major donations from Shell? Rep Pombo has taken a lot of money from ChevronTexaco, so why not get their logo put on his breast pocket? On his back maybe one of his largest donors, the National Auto Dealers Association could have prominent billing.

And not only would it raise revenue, it would also make it easier for voters who watch on CSPAN and CSPAN2 to know which side their representatives are really on. It's a win-win situation!

Heck, you could even grant companies naming rights to key pieces of legislation, so major tax giveaways to big oil could be called the Exxon Welfare Act. The recent overhaul of bankruptcy laws to favor credit companies could be called, depending on cheekiness, the Chase Bank says "Screw you, America" Bill.

See how much fun they could have?

So what do you think, Richard? Can you do your actual job and come up with solutions that will actually benefit the country rather than serve your benevolent masters?