BEWARE THE CAPITULATORS. Republicans are chortling over the fact that their "drill, drill, drill" campaign seems to have forced Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi to backtrack and agree to relax--by no means eliminate entirely--the ban on offshore drilling. Beware what is contained in the Trojan horse the Illinois senator and the congresswoman from San Francisco are offering as a peace token to the Republicans and to Americans who are appalled that Congress continues to prevent the development of our oil resources while crude oil and gasoline prices, although softening in recent weeks, remain high enough to contribute to the forces that are pulling the economy perilously close to recession.
Obama and Pelosi have no answer to a few simple questions: If they are now convinced that it is a good idea to develop our own resources of oil, why do they oppose a bill that would do that, and only that? Instead of making this now-agreed measure one ornament on a Christmas tree to subsidies, why not pass it on its own, and asap? And if it is now good policy to give some states the power to approve drilling off their coasts, why not off Pelosi's California?
We know that she has admitted to carrying the heavy burden of saving the planet--dwellers on this planet who have not had the opportunity of voting for or against her might not be delighted with this news--but as speaker of the House she surely also has the burden of preventing the steady flow of
trillions of dollars to oil-producing countries that wish us ill. Energy policy is now so clearly a part of security policy--Putin understands that, which is why he wants control of Georgia's pipelines and port facilities--that the Pelosi-Obama game is more than an assault on American drivers: it is an assault on our ability to maintain the value of the dollar, prevent funds from finding their way into the hands of terrorists, and protect our economy from the consequences of a supply interruption.
But these are only the most obvious of the reasons to be suspicious of the Obama-Pelosi-Democratic climb-down. They have devised a way of seeming to allow drilling offshore while at the same time preventing any such thing. That's what their insistence that any drilling be done in an environmentally sensitive manner is all about. Now, that sounds reasonable enough. After all, who favors drilling in an environmentally insensitive manner? The problem comes when that generalization is put to the test of actual practice.
Those of us who have in the past been involved in proceedings to which environmental groups are parties know that their first goal is to have any project strangled at birth--whether a drilling project, a new nuclear or coal plant, a wind farm, a transmission line. To achieve that goal, they often do not need to prevail in persuading the agencies that the proposed project is truly objectionable. All they have to do is delay, delay, delay, dragging out some hearings and appeals for decades, while costs rise and the sponsors lose interest.
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