August 7, 2008
Keep Up The Pressure On Drilling
National Review: The Democrats Find Themselves On The Wrong Side Of The Energy Issue
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Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accompanied by his wife Cindy, speaks to reporters during a tour of the Red Ribbon Ranch Oil Lease, San Joaquin Facilities Management Inc., Monday, July 28, 2008 in Bakersfield, Calif. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (AP)
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Play CBS Video Video Campaign Notebook: Energy John McCain won't stop making fun of Barack Obama's idea to inflate tires to save on oil. Obama lashed back saying "it's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Katie Couric reports.
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Video Energy Policy Fuels Hot Debate Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama attack each other over their competing energy plans, a hot topic for voters. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Video Obama On Offshore Drilling Barack Obama says that he would accept some offshore drilling as part of the "New Energy Reform Act 2008," a bipartisan bill that is stalled in Congress. Priya David reports.
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Interactive Energy Ed. A look at our sources of energy and how we use them to live and work.
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Interactive 110th Congress The balance of power shifts and new leadership takes control as the latest session convenes.
To drill or not to drill? According to recent polls, two thirds of Americans think Congress should lift restrictions that prevent energy companies from exploring the outer continental shelf for oil and natural gas. President Bush, John McCain, most Republicans, and some Democrats support lifting the ban. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid find themselves on the wrong side of the drilling question, and it has thrown their party into disarray.
All three Democrats are tangled on the same tripwire: Their friends in the environmental movement want to stop oil exploration. Unlike most politicians, who face public outcry when gas gets pricey, environmental groups are willing to argue that gas should to be more expensive in order to make alternative sources of energy seem cost-efficient by comparison. It’s not just that they oppose new drilling; they also support a windfall-profits tax on the oil companies, new restrictions on current oil production, and the elimination of tax provisions that allow energy companies to write off the cost of expanding refinery capacity.
By making gas cheaper, increased domestic oil production would prolong what environmentalists see as America’s harmful dependence on fossil fuels. These groups would oppose offshore drilling even if it had no direct impact on the environment.
Obama echoed this thinking in June, when a reporter asked him if high gas prices could help wean the U.S. from its dependence on oil. Obama answered that they could, even though he “would have preferred a gradual adjustment.” That same month, he said that McCain’s drilling proposal “would only worsen our addiction to oil and put off needed investments in clean, renewable energy.”
That was then. In July, Rasmussen released a poll showing that 67 percent of Americans support lifting the ban on offshore drilling, and now Obama appears to have reversed his position. If “a careful, well-thought-out drilling strategy” were attached to “the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” he said in an interview with the Palm Beach Post, he wouldn’t “want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”
Obama’s reversal coincides with the news that Nancy Pelosi has given at-risk Democrats permission to publicly support offshore drilling, freeing them to take the popular position while she blocks any efforts to lift the ban. Pelosi refused to allow any votes on drilling before adjourning the House for a five-week August vacation. A number of House Republicans stayed in Washington to hold protest sessions, arguing that Congress shouldn’t be taking a vacation at a time when high gas prices have caused many Americans to cancel theirs.
In the Senate, Harry Reid (“Oil makes us sick, . . . It’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuels”) also blocked energy legislation for fear that Republicans would offer drilling amendments and force Democratic senators (such as Barack Obama) to commit to positions. While their counterparts in the House are keeping the issue alive in Washington, Republican senators headed home to spend all five weeks talking about energy.
In both houses of Congress, the Democratic leadership has offered gimmicky solutions to distract the public from the drilling issue. First, Democrats argued that the oil companies had already leased millions of acres of public land that they weren’t using to produce any oil. That effort foundered when the oil companies pointed out that they weren’t producing oil on this land because they hadn’t found any when they explored it.
Then, Democrats pointed the finger at commodity traders, accusing them of driving up the price oil through “excessive speculation.” This effort didn’t gain any traction, either. Traders don’t conspire to drive up prices; they try to anticipate movements in supply and demand - so of course, as U.S. demand has slowed (and as an increasing number of U.S. policymakers have argued for increasing supply), the price of oil futures contracts has fallen.
The latest half-baked idea comes from a “gang of ten” senators - five Republicans, five Democrats - who have offered a compromise that would lift the ban on offshore drilling in exchange for $20 billion in new federal spending on alternative sources of energy. The list - ag-friendly guys like Saxby Chambliss and Kent Conrad, corn-staters like Ben Nelson and John Thune - smells of ethanol. The compromise bill includes $2.5 billion for biofuel research and billions more in incentives for automakers to make cars with ethanol-burning engines. There might be a smart way for Washington to subsidize research into alternative energy, but this isn’t it.
There is a simpler solution. The congressional ban on drilling has to be renewed each year, and the current ban expires in September, so congressional Republicans and President Bush should fight to stop the ban’s renewal. The Democrats are backpedaling like mad. Their presidential candidate doesn’t have a coherent position and has resorted to Carter-esque lectures on energy conservation. Meanwhile, the speaker of the House is telling vulnerable members of her caucus to support lifting the ban.
The Democrats find themselves on the wrong side of the most important issue to Americans right now. Now is not the time for a compromise. It’s time to keep applying pressure.
By The Editors
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 55 Commentsyou know it seems funny to me that all the enviro nuts dont like oil....but they use it ...they wont let us take this nasty stuff out of the ground(its a pollutant)but at the same time if we had it as a byproduct that we could not use for anything they would not let us put it it the ground where it is now now that makes you wonder what koolaid their drinking
Not a peep has been mentioned about the umpteen thousand leased acres the oil companies already have to drill on, but won''t, even when its been proved there are gas and oil reserves under the ground on this land.
And even if they do drill on this land, what gaurentee do we have that WE and not still-RED China won''t end up with the oil? Besides, apparently the neocon Fascist Nazis believe that by blinking their eyes, oil rigs are going to sprout overnight like mold or fungus.
The biggest question that NO neocon wants to address is what happens when the oil RUNS OUT and our planet looks like Mars????? I guess we send oil rigs to Saturn''s moon, Titan, where there are supposed to be lakes of oil, and ruin that planet!
When it comes to logic, neocon Fascist Nazi Republicans are totally stupid, and the problem is, they convince most of us to be toally stupid with them!!!!!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!!
sig heil, "DRRRRIILLLLLLLL!" McCain!!!!!
& made fenceposts !!
This profligate generation doesn''t
deserve the oil. Future civilation
will curse that we burned up this
valuable polymer building block.
OIL ON THE BRAIN
DRILL THERE
Unfortunately for them, there are still laws that we hold elections.
Neocon Mission Accomplished!
very true. maybe it''s time to nationalize the oil industry & pay the oil ceos a civil servant''s wage without any bonuses.
"The Editors" are nothing more than Bush/McCain spin doctors.
If the government can''t see this they are Zombies controlled by the oil industry.
Additionally, remember what happened with Hurricane Katrina. A few more of those, and what supply we do have now without options will be severely interrupted and the prices again will skyrocket overnight like they did before.
We need to drill now while we reinvent our transportation systems.
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See all 55 Comments