Obama's Drill Bit
04 August, 2008
The Wall Street Journal
Even as he proposes to arbitrarily soak the profits from oil exploration, Barack Obama is finally beginning to bend on offshore drilling. Late last week he said he could perhaps support more U.S. energy exploration, so long as it was part of a larger "bipartisan" deal that presumably includes more rules for conservation, subsidies for noncarbon fuels, and other favorites of his green backers.
Leave aside the economic contradiction in allowing more drilling to find more oil only to strip the profits from companies that succeed in finding it. The real news here is political, as Mr. Obama and his advisers have begun to see the polls move against them on energy. With gas at $4 a gallon, voters even in such drilling-averse states as Florida increasingly see the need for more domestic oil supplies. So Mr. Obama is now doing a modified, limited switcheroo to block any John McCain traction on the issue.
Only last week, Mr. Obama couldn't have been more opposed, calling more drilling a "scheme" that wouldn't reduce gas prices. He's also been telling voters that we don't need to open more areas to drilling because the oil companies weren't drilling enough on the leases they already have. That is nonsense, since not every lease yields oil in amounts worth developing and drilling permits aren't automatic even on leased land.
The question for Mr. Obama is whether this latest switch is merely a rhetorical move for campaign purposes. If he's serious, he'll start to publicly lobby Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill to allow a vote on drilling when they return from their August recess. The McCain campaign should keep the pressure on until he does, and until Congress moves.
Watch what Obama DOES when Congress comes back to see if he is just posing.
Pelosi firm: No vote on offshore drilling ; Campaigns spar over energy policy as Congress adjourns
Susan Page
04 August, 2008
USA Today
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday ruled out a vote on new offshore oil drilling even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said he might be open to a compromise that included it.
The scramble over expanded drilling off America's coasts -- ammunition for a weekend of rat-a-tat-tat by the presidential campaigns -- underscores the political power of $4-a-gallon gas. Though President Bush and other backers of new drilling acknowledge it wouldn't directly affect gas prices for years, they have pounded Democrats for opposing the measure, which is now supported by most Americans.
Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech today in Lansing, Mich., on energy policy, unveiling what spokesman Bill Burton called "new short-term and long-term solutions to the energy crisis that we're facing."
On Tuesday, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain is scheduled to go to the Enrico Fermi nuclear power plant in Newport, Mich., to spotlight his proposal for more nuclear plants.
The latest furor over energy policy began when Obama, campaigning in Florida on Saturday, spoke favorably of a Senate plan that includes new offshore drilling, a step he has long opposed.
"What I don't want is for the best to be the enemy of the good here," he told reporters in Titusville. "If we can come up with a genuine, bipartisan compromise in which I have to accept some things I don't like, or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like, in exchange for moving us in the direction of energy independence, then that's something I'm open to."
McCain also would be "open to compromise packages" on energy, aide Nancy Pfotenhauer said Sunday on CNN's Late Edition.
The Senate measure, unveiled Friday by five Democrats and five Republicans, would give states the final say in drilling 50 miles or more from shore on the Outer Continental Shelf. It also would repeal a key tax break for oil companies, expand funding for alternative- fuel vehicles and extend tax credits to promote alternative and efficient energy.
Pelosi called proposals to allow more offshore drilling a deceptive "decoy" rather than a solution and indicated she would bar a vote on any bill that included it. "I'm not giving the gavel away to a tactic ... that supports the oil (companies), big oil at the cost and the expense of the consumer," she said on ABC's This Week.
The House started a five-week summer recess Friday despite Republican demands for a vote on lifting the federal ban on offshore drilling. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said GOP representatives would be on the House floor today to protest the lack of action.
Pelosi's hard line is good news for Obama, said Thomas Mann, a congressional analyst at the Brookings Institution. Her action "basically cools the passion of environmentalists, knowing it's not going anywhere, while he (is) open to compromise on a comprehensive package that would achieve many other objectives," Mann said. "It allows him to effectively have it both ways."
Is Pelosi playing the bad cop, letting Obama APPEAR moderate, willing to compromise without actually having to do it?
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken July 25-27 found that Americans by numbers approaching 2-1 would be more likely to support a candidate who backs expanded offshore drilling.
McCain had opposed new offshore drilling but announced in June that he would support it because of rising energy costs. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent and former Democrat who backs McCain, said the switch demonstrated the Arizona senator's decisiveness in responding to a crisis.
In contrast, "Barack Obama says this weekend 'maybe,' 'eh,' and 'if, but,'" Lieberman said on NBC's Meet the Press. "He did not come out with a strong decision."
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, an Obama supporter, replied that the Illinois senator was ready to "break America's gridlock by honoring a bipartisan effort."
Senate's Gang of 10 offers an offshore drilling plan
Compromise would open some areas to exploration
By DAVID IVANOVICH Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
Aug. 1, 2008, 11:35PM
THE GANG OF 10
Senators proposing a bipartisan energy compromise:
Democrats
Kent Conrad, N.D.
Mary Landrieu, La.
Blanche Lincoln, Ark.
Mark Pryor, Ark.
Ben Nelson, Neb.
Republicans
Saxby Chambliss, Ga.
Johnny Isakson, Ga.
Lindsey Graham, S.C.
John Thune, S.D.
Bob Corker, Tenn.
WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators Friday unveiled a compromise energy plan that would open new areas in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and Southeast Atlantic to oil and gas drilling, while raising taxes on the major oil companies.
Hoping to break a stalemate that has kept the nation's energy policy in idle even as gasoline prices soared, the self-styled Gang of 10 would allow producers to explore as close as 50 miles off Florida's Gulf coast.
The oil companies also would be able to hunt for crude 50 miles off the beaches of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia — if those states agree.
With its proposal, the group is hoping to send a signal to the markets that "America is serious about becoming independent of foreign oil," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a leader of the effort.
The $84 billion New Energy Reform Act would fund an effort — which its backers liken to the Apollo moon landing program — to transform the nation's cars and trucks, with a goal of having 85 percent of new vehicles on the road run on nonpetroleum-based fuels within 20 years.
Excluding oil majors
To pay for their proposal, lawmakers would raise the major oil companies' taxes by excluding them from tax credits that apply to other manufacturers.
"Frankly, there was a lot of dispute at the time it was granted to them," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "Circumstances have changed. With oil at these levels, we don't think that manufacturers' credit is necessary to encourage them to explore and produce oil and gas."
Neither of the major party presidential candidates — Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain — is in the Gang of 10.
On the campaign trail Friday, Obama appeared to soften his opposition to offshore drilling.
"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. "I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done," Obama is quoted as saying.
McCain supports opening federal waters to drilling, and reiterated his position Friday.
"We need oil drilling and we need it now offshore," he said.
The five Democrats and five Republicans in the Gang of 10 released the energy plan as lawmakers were leaving the capital for the start of their August recess and just two days after a bipartisan group in the House offered its own, even more extensive offshore drilling plan.
Energy has emerged as a major election year issue.
Sticking around in House
On Friday, a group of Republicans in the House protested House inaction on energy by refusing to leave the House floor for more than five hours after the chamber adjourned for the summer, McClatchy Newspapers reported.
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, one of the revolt's ringleaders, told McClatchy it was sparked by the refusal of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to allow House floor votes on drilling. At its peak, 47 Republican representatives spoke in a dimmed chamber without microphones while hundreds of visitors filled the House chamber and the galleries.
The Gang of 10 proposal would encourage states to allow drilling off their shores by sharing some of the federal offshore royalty revenues with the states.
But unlike the other four states, Florida would not get a choice on whether to allow drilling off its coasts.
When asked why not, Chambliss said, "It's only a logical extension of what's happening in the Gulf right now. Plus, that area has been identified as an area where resources are available right now."
But the proposal, coming just two years after passage of a carefully crafted compromise that opened a portion of the eastern Gulf, was met by almost immediate opposition from Florida's senators — Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Mel Martinez.
Nelson has already has told Senate leadership "if anybody wants to drill off Florida, they'll have a fight on their hands," Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said in an e-mail.
Martinez, in a statement, said: "Unfortunately, the proposal would eliminate Florida's 2006 Gulf protections and give Floridians absolutely no voice in determining where exploration could occur."
The Gang of 10 tried to avoid more opposition by limiting the new areas open for exploration, opting not to try to include the West Coast or the East Coast north of Virginia — areas where opposition might have been equally vigorous.
"We've got to start somewhere," Chambliss said. "It doesn't make a whole lot of sense just to open everything up right now and think that ... we're going to have a rush by the folks who do the exploration to go all over America."
The bill's prospects are far from certain. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the proposal "includes some very good ideas" but added: "I do not agree with every part of it."
Texas' two Republican senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, declined immediate comment on the proposal, saying they had not had a chance to study it.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said administration officials will "take a look at it and see if there's aspects of it that we could embrace." But President Bush has threatened to veto bills that targeted oil companies for higher taxes.
Karen Matusic, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute, argued that higher taxes would impede efforts to maximize U.S. energy supplies.
Jim Presswood, energy advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council, applauded the provisions that would promote use of cleaner fuels. But Presswood worries the offshore drilling provisions could be "disastrous" for coastal communities.
On Friday, light, sweet crude settled at $125.10 a barrel, up $1.02.
Members of the Gang of 10 are hopeful that while lawmakers are back home talking to their constituents over the next five weeks, support for their proposal will build.
"When we come back, we hope that colleagues will have heard from their constituents that something has to be done and done before Congress finishes its business this year," Conrad said.
chron.com |
