Playing politics on oil and energy

What happened

Democrats faced growing pressure this week to open America’s coasts to offshore oil drilling, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow a vote on the issue before Congress recessed. Pelosi, senior Democratic aides said, hopes to stall action on any new energy bill until after the November elections, on the assumption that Democrats will pick up seats. In frustration, a band of House Republicans took to the vacant House chamber throughout the week, demanding that the Democrats return for a vote.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama also jockeyed for political advantage on the energy issue. McCain, who reversed his opposition to drilling in June, said in Pennsylvania, “We have to drill here and drill now.” To meet rising energy needs, he also called for 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and investments in cleaner coal. Obama, too, reversed course on drilling this week, saying he would support some drilling as part of a larger compromise featuring $150 billion in alternative energy investments. The Democrat also proposed a $1,000 “energy rebate” to families that would be funded by a windfall-profits tax on oil companies, and reversed his opposition to tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help reduce gas prices.

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What the editorials said

Does Obama believe in anything? asked the New York Post. McCain decided to reverse himself and support drilling in response to the spike in gas prices, while Obama’s various flip-flops this week were motivated by pure politics. His call to release emergency gas supplies from the nation’s reserves is reckless; his reversal on drilling reeks of pandering, especially since his hedging shows he doesn’t truly believe in it. To top it off, he now supports a “windfall-profits tax” on the same oil companies to which he gave tax breaks in 2005. “What a difference a few polls make, no?”

It’s McCain who is doing the worst pandering, said the Los Angeles Times. McCain’s “drill now” approach “would have no short-term effect on oil prices” while threatening coastlines, exacerbating climate change, and keeping us hooked on foreign oil. Obama is showing real leadership in announcing a 10-year goal of making cars, appliances, and buildings more efficient and developing solar and wind technologies. That certainly beats McCain’s plan to simply “give the country another fix.”

What the columnists said

Republicans just might drill their way to the White House, said Larry Kudlow in National Review Online. High gas prices have inspired a “voter revolt” reminiscent of “the anti-tax rebellion” that helped put Ronald Reagan into office. Speaker Pelosi is amplifying the Republicans’ “drill, drill, drill message” by defying the “two-thirds to three-quarters of the nation” that supports it. Could McCain’s more realistic energy policy lead “to a convincing victory over Obama”?

Let’s hope not, said Paul Krugman in The New York Times. McCain’s claim that high gas prices result from opposition to drilling is “just

plain dishonest.” Even the government’s Energy Information Administration says offshore drilling wouldn’t increase “domestic oil production until 2017” or have a significant impact on prices. Drilling fever is really part of “a much bigger fight” over “whether we’ll take action against climate change before it’s utterly too late.”

Climate change is not the only threat we face, said Jonathan Gurwitz in the San Antonio Express-News. While Democrats and Republicans offer up populist energy plans, Americans are sending another $600 billion this year to “the mullahs, potentates, and dictators who control the world’s oil reserves.” These creeps must be laughing at us. Both Al Gore and T. Boone Pickens have offered far more ambitious plans for breaking the country’s dangerous dependency on oil from hostile nations. “Where is the leadership in Washington?”

What next?

Pelosi, who last week said she was “trying to save the planet,” has privately told House members they are free to vote to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling when Congress returns in September, said Martin Kady II in Politico.com. With polls showing that a majority of Americans favor drilling, Pelosi’s strategy is to stall and take the heat herself, while allowing vulnerable Democrats “to save their political hides.” The long-range plan is to wait until Democrats “own Washington” after November’s election, and then craft an energy policy that permits some new oil drilling but emphasizes alternative fuels and conservation.