Off-Shore Drilling - One Step Closer
July 15th, 2008 by Wiley CodyFor off-shore drilling to happen, three things have to happen.
1) The Executive Moratorium has to be lifted.
2) The Congressional Moratorium has to be lifted.
3) States have to allow exploration.
1) The Executive Moratorium has to be lifted.
Done. Thank you President Bush - took you long enough, eh?
2) The Congressional Moratorium has to be lifted.
That’s sort of up to Congressional Leadership - which is in the hands of Democrats which is in the pockets of environmental extremists - so it’s a long-shot. But it’s a fight worth picking, and with San Francisco Nancy Pelosi coming to the San Francisco Missoula, Montana later this month, there seems to be a pretty good opportunity coming to let her know exactly how much we’re all enjoying the Pelosi Premium.
There’s going to be a lot of pressure - especially for the so-called Blue-Dog Democrats who won in traditionally conservative districts - to let states decide how to harvest their own resources. If given a vote in the House, I’d say it’s 50/50 on passage (although, I doubt Pelosi will allow a vote).
In the Senate, things are a bit trickier, but there the Republicans can force a vote via amendments and the NIMBY caucus of coastal may not need to throw themselves on the grenade of federal involvement considering;
3) Sans Federal interference, the coastal states (read - blue states), have to actually allow that exploration.
This is probably the biggest sticking point. The Federal Government cannot compel states to develop their own resources, and a significant portion of the coastal states are controlled by urban environmentalists worried that a drilling rig 50 miles out will spoil their pristine view.
Even the Republicans balk at off-shore drilling - just this weekend I heard the Governator rejecting the possibility of off-shore drilling of the California coast-line (to which I suggest that maybe we should start charging the fifth largest economic power in the world a tariff for importing gas from the rest of the country - driving all our prices up).
So, yes. It’s an uphill battle. But it’s one worth fighting as much for policy reasons as for political ones. The Democrats look really stupid throwing their populist base under the bus for the deep pockets of the environmental lobby. Rejecting the growing public support for drilling in the face of skyrocketing gas prices merely reveals who is really pulling the strings behind the curtain - and that’s a revelation that is going to come home to bite them.
