These people have a lot of nerve. The do-nothing Congress is getting ready to leave Washington for its traditional August recess. That’s a vacation this Congress hasn’t earned. Instead of taking time off to campaign to keep their jobs, members should spend the month actually doing their jobs. Here are five vital areas in which Congress should spend August getting something done instead of just talking about it:

- More domestic energy:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t let Congress vote on common-sense, bipartisan measures to increase energy supplies. Reid and Pelosi won’t even allow a floor debate on the merits of lifting the legislative ban on drilling off our own coastline — where billions of barrels of oil are waiting to be extracted — or in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.

- Fund the government on time:

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For the first time in 60 years, Congress hasn’t passed legislation by its August recess to keep the federal government running. If lawmakers leave town now, they will have just one month when they return in September to get the job done before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Reid and Pelosi should junk any plans to stuff all 12 pending appropriations bills into one, gigantic take-it-or-leave-it continuing resolution to circumvent debate. That would force President Bush to sign bills he would otherwise veto.

- Judicial vacancies:

The Senate has confirmed only a handful of President Bush’s judicial nominees. Dozens more are trapped in political limbo, as Reid stalls for a Democratic president. This is unfair to the nominees and a usurpation of executive perogatives. Reid should schedule up-or-down votes on each judicial nominee before he or any other senator takes a recess.

- Investigate corrupt trial lawyers:

Four former partners of the Milberg Weiss law firm pleaded guilty in a kickback scheme that netted them hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet even after the firm’s former star litigator said such abuse of the judicial system is common practice in the plaintiffs’ bar, Congress has still not started a full-scale investigation. What are the lawmakers waiting for?

- Congressional ethics:

Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” when the Democrats won the majority in 2006. More recently, Reid and Pelosi have been gutting their own new ethics rules, including those designed to curtail earmark-inspired lobbying abuses like those that landed Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy Cunningham, R-Calif., in the hoosegow. The House Ethics Committee finally had to ask six outsiders to police its own members. No wonder Congress now has a 9 percent public approval rating!