Lead On Energy Now Or Follow Later

Apparently the "Drill Now! Wait Eight Years! Yell Again To Drill Now" crowd of Republicans has cowed the Democratic leadership into halting all efforts at moving on energy bills for the rest of the year. They took sensible lines of attack, like demanding that oil companies actually drill on the fields they have already leased instead of holding them in reserve to add to their stock price, and let them go.

Just before leaving for their districts, a number of House Democrats called a press conference to declare victory on a number of energy bills — including overwhelming passage of a bill to rein in excessive oil market speculation.
Democrats declared victory on a bill they failed to pass on the suspension calendar — their “use it or lose it bill” to force energy companies to either start drilling on their federally leased land or give it back — saying they had put 176 Republicans on record as siding with the oil companies over consumers.

And they vowed that the bill, the centerpiece of their energy message, would be back.

“We’ve taken some bold steps this week, and we’re going to build on that [after recess] with the bills we take up,” Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (Conn.) said at the press conference.

But, as of Monday afternoon, neither “use it or lose it” nor any other energy measure had been scheduled for floor action this week.

Democrats said they were simply taking a different approach to passing their top energy-related priorities.

The approach should be to fight back. For example, the fact that in the last two days major oil developers have admitted that there's nothing left to drill and high prices are a new reality might be a place to start. For example:

Chip Johnson, the president and chief executive of Carrizo Oil and Gas, a Houston-based company, said he was “confused” by “such wild swings.” But he added: “I can’t see oil getting cheap again ever. It’s just too hard to find, and too many people want to use it.”

Example two, from T. Boone Pickens, fercryinoutloud:

Can’t we just produce more oil?

World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.

The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.

So the Democrats can cede the point to the "Drill Now" crowd, and implicitly agree that more production is the answer, or they can offer a cleaner, safer, renewable alternative that will actually be cheaper over time and help save the planet from ruin as an added benefit.



One thing we can do is open up the ethanol market to all countries, and end our subsidy program for the corn industry. By the way, if anyone thinks the primary process isn't detrimental to the nation and its priorities, consider the harm done to the global food market by pleasing Iowan farmers. Illinois also has a lot of corn production, which is why Sen. Obama has been historically in favor of it. As he transitions into a national politician, he needs to allow the global ethanol market to prosper instead of the parochial one, and focus far more strongly on renewable sources rather than alternative fuels which expend just as much (if not more) energy to produce. He's starting to do that, but he needs to also educate his party. Obama's energy ad stated up-front that "McCain and Bush support a drilling plan that won't produce a drop of oil for seven years." So both the leadership and the candidate need to show improvement here. They both need to talk to Mark Begich.