Rep. Michele Bachmann’s announcement last week that she’s mulling the idea of becoming a potential contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 has brought about a new round of fact-checking her statements this week. PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating on Tuesday, while Poligraph gave her an “inconclusive” on Wednesday. A member of Congress even used committee testimony this week to try and debunk one of her more frequent claims.

On the campaign trail in Iowa last weekend, Bachmann offered an assertion that PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times, found completely false. Bachmann said, “Let’s look at the number one. Number one. That’s the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.”

She continued, “Gee, maybe that has something to do with this next figure. Let’s take a look, $1.83. That is the price that gasoline was the day before Barack Obama took office as president of the United States. Is it time for a change?”

Obama put a moratorium on offshore drilling following the an explosion at a BP oil rig that killed 11 people and caused one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history.

PolitiFact found that the Obama administration has approved numerous permits for offshore drilling, both deepwater (six permits) and shallow (39 permits). PolitiFact gave Bachmann its lowest rating, Pants on Fire.

As an aside, Sen. Al Franken signed on to the Use It or Lose It Act of 2011 directing oil companies to develop oil production on federal lands they currently lease or lose their leases in an attempt to ramp up oil production.

On Wednesday, Minnesota Public Radio’s Poligraph evaluated another of Bachmann’s statements during her Iowa campaigning: “From the day it passed one year ago until today, there hasn’t been one week that a majority of Americans haven’t said ‘kill that bill.’”

Poligraph notes, “Bachmann’s correct that there’s solid support for repealing some or all the health care bill. What’s unclear is whether the majority of Americans do, or if they have every week for the last year. One poll supports this claim, others don’t. As a result, Bachmann’s claim is Inconclusive.”

Bachmann’s office said the numbers she was referencing came from Gallup, but Poligraph notes that other pollsters have found that the number of Americans who support a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act varies widely.

Also on Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey grilled Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf about Bachmann’s infamous claim that $105 billion was “hidden” in the health care reform bill. ThinkProgress caught the exchange:

REP. FRANK PALLONE (D-NJ): We considered a bill that would repeal funding for section 1311, the health insurance exchange planning and establishment grants. Did you know about that funding stream?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

PALLONE: Okay, so it wasn’t hidden. What about section 4002, the prevention and public health fund. Did you know about that?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

PALLONE: So that wasn’t hidden either. And what about funding for school based health centers? Did you know about that?

ELMENDORF: Yes, Congressman.

“In retrospect, you would not have stopped that drilling? I’m asking if 8 weeks ago you would have stopped that drilling?” asked Franken.

“I would not, because we have to be bound, and the administration has to be bound, by the contractual rights of the lessees,” said Coleman. “It is not an unreasonable risk to allow more drilling.”

“This tragedy shows us that our laws aren’t doing enough,” Franken said in a statement following the hearings. “We need to improve our laws so that bad actors like BP can’t just make a business decision to ignore them. We need laws that better incentivize safety. And we need laws that strictly penalize violations, and help the people harmed by those violations.”

Here’s video of Franken questioning Coleman about the BP disaster:

If the GOP Platform Committee doesn't like Michele's energy plan, who will?

The Republican Party Platform Committee’s rejection today of a plank urging drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a major embarrassment for committee member Michele Bachmann.

The 6^th District congresswoman has been one of Congress’ most vocal, if ill-informed, proponents of opening up the refuge to oil exploration and production, and she has made it one of her re-election campaign’s marquee issues. But Bachmann’s newfound energy expertise obviously didn’t impress the 112-member Platform Committee, which voted against including language favorable to the controversial proposal.

Bachmann and Republican activist Tony Sutton represent Minnesota on the panel.

The GOP’s presumptive nominee, John McCain, doesn’t support drilling in ANWR, and the majority of the committee’s members didn’t want to put the platform at odds with him, according to Congressional Quarterly.

“The goal is to not have this serve as a lightning rod,” said Terry Strine of Delaware, a member of the platform committee’s energy and environment subcommittee, which debated for more than four hours Tuesday. “This will bring difficulties and challenges or John McCain and none of us want to do that,” Strine added.

Others echoed that concern. “We have a nominee for the party who is entitled to a platform he can run on, and we should not create unnecessary conflicts between the nominee and the platform,” said James Bopp of Indiana.

We’re not likely to see a prolonged embrace between Bachmann and John McCain anytime soon, regardless of the party’s position on ANWR. Bachmann told Sherburne County Republicans last spring that McCain “is not my man. Our candidate was chosen by the media. But there are other races out there.”