The Democrats' cynical ploy on drilling

Ever since the Republicans scored politically by pressing for offshore drilling, congressional Democrats have been scrambling to find a way to counter the political appeal that the issue has found with a public fed up with high gas prices. As Steve Kornacki traces the history of the past few months, the Democrats have tried several arguments to counter the popularity of the "drill, baby, drill" mantra. So now the Democrats have returned to the House and decided that they needed to pass something to give their members cover before the election. So they've come up with the most cynical ploy possible. They rushed through a bill in less than 24 hours under closed rules so it couldn't be amended at all. Remember how they came in promising to allow a full debate on all major bills. Yes, that promise is gone with the wind in the past year and a half.

The House bill will not become law this year. The Senate has a different bill and Bush would veto it. The congressional ban on offshore drilling will expire in a couple of weeks, so the Democrats are gambling that Obama will win and then can reinstate the presidential ban on offshore drilling that Bush lifted earlier this year. Oil companies aren't going to rush to start drilling offshore while there is this political uncertainty. So the Democrats figure they can have their cake and eat it too. They can vote for a sham bill and still block offshore drilling while pretending to do otherwise. If the Republicans can't expose this fraud then they deserve their continued minority status.

Just in case you are interested in what is in this bill that Nancy Pelosi just rushed through, the Wall Street Journal summarizes some of its provisions.

The bill would allow exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf, but only in waters 100 or more miles out in the Atlantic and Pacific. The farthest reaches of the OCS contain resources, but undersea geography and deep water make development very -- if not prohibitively -- expensive. Areas closer to land are far richer and easier to access. Conveniently, Mrs. Pelosi's bill imposes a 50-mile "buffer zone" around the country.

Coastal states could pass laws to allow drilling between 50 and 100 miles. However, the bill bars revenue sharing with adjacent states. Democrats know how important such a booster shot could be for state budgets, so they took away the incentive for states to opt in and approve new drilling. The bill also retains a leasing ban in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which has the most immediate potential in the lower 48. Oil-and-gas reserves are known to be abundant, production systems are nearby in Texas and Louisiana, and even the Senate's paltry "gang of 10" proposal would liberate the Gulf.

Less shocking is that the bill orders up more than $18 billion in pork for "renewable" energy -- and it comes with the works. There are the usual huge subsidies for wind and solar power, and even "marine renewables" (whale oil?). These are "paid for" by raising taxes on the major American oil companies, which would also be forced to retroactively "renegotiate" the terms of their late-1990s lease contracts in the Gulf of Mexico. If that wealth transfer isn't a big enough crutch for the alternatives, there's also a mandate that utilities generate 15% of their electricity from such sources by 2020. In other words, taxpayers get charged twice -- once to pay for Congress's green welfare program, and again when they pay their electric bill.

Then there's a tax credit of up to $5,000 for anyone who buys a plug-in electric car, though normal drivers will still be able to fill up with "fuel from America's heartland," aka the fiasco known as corn ethanol.

As David Paul Kuhn points out at Politico, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have helped the Republicans do what seemed impossible - improve their image in the country which had sunk to its nadir in 2006.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports that independent voters have an equally favorable opinion of both parties, 50 to 49 percent, a one-point edge for the GOP. That compares to an 18-point Democratic advantage as recently as August, a wide gap that had generally held for more than a year.

And half of registered voters overall now have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, the highest GOP ranking in three years. Slightly more voters, 55 percent, continue to have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

Probably some of this is just the afterglow from the Republican Convention, but I would bet that a lot of the renewed appeal is that people have come to realize that neither party is all that competent and the close observation of how the Democrats rule when they're in power helped people to realize that some of the problems stem from institutional barriers in Congress to competent government.

And as the Democrats continue to try to wind up the appropriations process, we get stories like this one from the Examiner, about how Harry Reid is sneaking earmarks into the defense bill.

As the stock market plunged nearly 1,000 points in two days this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada was preoccupied with protecting billions of dollars worth of earmarks contained in a separate, unpublished committee report that got a one-sentence reference in a giant $612 billion defense bill. Reid engineered the 61-to-32 vote to limit debate on the bill, thus barring consideration of an amendment offered by Sen. Jim DeMint. The South Carolina Republican’s amendment would have deleted the reference to the committee report so that it would have to be considered separately. By leaving the language in the bill, the lawmakers were able to carry out one of their favorite maneuvers: Incorporating committee reports into omnibus bills so they can give billions of tax dollars to their cronies without recorded votes on specific spending measures. This is the same Harry Reid who with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to “drain the swamp” of Republican corruption if voters would return the Democrats to the majority.

But Reid’s move was not just a slap at DeMint. Under pressure from a bipartisan coalition of fiscal watchdog groups, including Porkbusters, Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, National Taxpayers Union and Taxpayers for Common Sense, President George W. Bush signed an executive order last January that directed federal agencies to ignore earmarks that only appear in committee reports. If DeMint’s proposal had passed, the earmarks in the defense bill’s committee report would have been merely suggestions – not legally binding spending instructions. No wonder Reid made sure the South Carolinian’s amendment never made it to the Senate floor.

As the memories of Republican incompetence fade, voters have a clear picture of what the Democrats are like when they're in power and the contrast helps Republicans recover a bit of their brand loyalty. Cynical ploys like this week's House energy bill aren't going to help the Democrats block that trend.