Crime and Oil in California - Letter from Congressman Dan Lungren

All the way across the country, Washington DC’s policies are impacting Californians in some strong ways.  
Supreme Assault on the People of California
After the United States Supreme Court last week issued what Justice Scalia called “an order requiring California to release the staggering number of 46,000 convicted criminals,” I was concerned, to say the least.  As California’s Attorney General, I led the nationwide effort to enact the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).  The language of the PLRA – grossly misinterpreted by the Supreme Court – was largely written by my office’s professional prosecutors.  We authored the PLRA to prevent federal judicial overreach such as a previous court order compelling Philadelphia to release thousands of inmates. 

In the Philadelphia case, as recounted by Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts, “Although efforts were made to release only those prisoners who were least likely to commit violent crimes, that attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful.  During an 18-month period, the Philadelphia police rearrested thousands of these prisoners for committing 9,732 new crimes.  Those defendants were charged with 79 murders, 90 rapes, 1,113 assaults, 959 robberies, 701 burglaries, and 2,748 thefts, not to mention thousands of drug offenses."
If the Philadelphia case were not enough, we also learned last week that California has already mistakenly released 450 high-risk inmates as unsupervised parolees.  This was before the Supreme Court mandated the state release tens of thousands of inmates. 
I have come to know numerous victims of crime and surviving family members.  For them this is not an abstract game played out for years in the courts.  It is a cold harsh reality that they are forced to live with every day.  For them and for potential future victims, the Supreme Court’s decision is nothing short of a moral outrage. 
My staff and I are scouring the Supreme Court’s decision in search of any legislative remedy.  The United States Supreme Court’s foray into legislating prison sentences in California must be mitigated if at all possible.
Implementing an All of the Above Energy Policy
I am also concerned by the high price of gasoline in our district.  This month at home, I couldn’t find anything cheaper than $3.97/gallon, which is higher than the national average.  With high unemployment as we head into summer vacations, these spiraling gas prices are an anchor to our economic growth.
I support the implementation of an “all of the above” energy policy which involves wind, solar, alternative fuels, the development of a new generation of lithium ion batteries and other energy initiatives.  As we discover and transition to cheaper, cleaner fuels, we must also increase our domestic production of oil. 
Therefore, I co-sponsored the North American-Made Energy Security Act with Congressman Lee Terry to expedite the consideration and approval of the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would run from Canada to Nebraska then to the U.S. Gulf Coast.  This pipeline could, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), bring as many as 100,000 barrels a day of American Bakken crude oil to the market.  It is also projected by TransCanada, which builds and operates energy infrastructure in North America, to increase current capacity from 591,000 barrels a day to 1.1 million barrels a day.  This greater supply would hopefully help alleviate the high gas prices, but the construction and operation of the pipeline as well as the increased work at refineries would mean more American jobs. 
Sincerely,
Daniel E. Lungren
Member of Congress