Drill Here, Drill N- What, A Vote? Retreat, Retreat!

Well, the Democrats called the bluff of the Drill Now crowd, and exposed them as hypocrites. Yesterday, they passed a comprehensive energy bill that reflected a true compromise. The main details of the bill are here. This measure lifts the moratorium on offshore drilling beyond 50 miles with the particular state's permission, and fully lifts it 100-200 miles offshore. It also includes tax credits for renewable energy, sets a 15% standard for renewables by 2020 (which is short of the EU's plan for 20% and Al Gore's plan for 100%, but it's better than what we currently have), eliminates tax breaks and subsidies for Big Oil, reforms the Mineral Management Service and their oil-for-sex scandal (which McCain lobbyists are right in the middle of), releases oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, forces oil companies to actually pay royalties on public lands, incentivizes energy efficiency and conservation, and institutes "use it of lose it" measures to ensure that oil companies actually use the lands they currently have.

In other words, oil companies get their drilling, but the American people get their share of the proceeds, and we finally start moving toward a post-carbon society.

That sounds like "all of the above" to me, but the Republicans wanted no part of it. In fact, they tried to adjourn Congress, in what has to be the most craven move of... well, of the week. The GOP spent 6 weeks pitching a fit about drilling, and when they get a bill that they can vote on, they want to duck it by shutting down Congress. In the end, only 15 Republicans voted for the compromise (here's the roll call), while the rest bitched and moaned that the bill was a "hoax" and a "sham".

The sham was the months-long effort on drilling in the first place. They were good at the rhetoric of "all of the above" on energy, but when push came to shove they couldn't do anything that would hurt the record profits of Big Oil in the least. It's "drill only" and it's always been "drill only," despite the fact that conservation over the last few months has done more to lower gas prices than offshore drilling ever could.

Republicans are trying to play the public for suckers, again. And they're desperate to keep the failed policies of the past firmly in place. I don't know if the Democrats have the chops to make that message stick, but we'll see.