A group of House conservatives is quite literally wasting energy
in trying to push hard for a perfect bill on offshore drilling at
the possible expense of a good bill that could easily pass. They
ought to take what they can get now, knowing that they always can
come back for more in future years.
At issue are competing House and Senate bills that each would
open vast new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling and share some
of the resulting revenues with the states off whose shores the
drilling is conducted.
There can be no doubt that more
offshore drilling is needed and environmentally
responsible. And there can be no doubt that the House bill is the
stronger bill, because it allows far more energy fields to be
opened to development (if the affected states acquiesce).
But there also can be no doubt that it is foolish in the extreme
to hold out for the House bill instead of the lesser, but still
substantial, bill that already has passed the Senate and that
President Bush already is willing to accept.
First, let’s see what the Senate bill does. Then let’s look into
the tactical considerations that make it a wise option for the
House to accept.
The Senate bill would open a whopping 8.3 million acres of the
Gulf of Mexico to energy production. Its backers cite geologists,
quite believably, who say the newly opened energy fields contain
some 1.26 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas. Gasoline from that oil, say supporters, could fill the
tanks of 1.7 billion cars for a 400-mile journey each — or, looked
at another way, keep 2.7 million cars fueled for 15 years. In
addition to the gasoline produced, that much oil would provide
enough heating oil to heat 1.2 million homes for 15 years.
The natural gas, meanwhile, could provide heat or air
conditioning for some 6 million homes for those same 15 years.
That’s some serious energy. And in these days of high and wildly
unstable energy costs that could be exacerbated by unrest in the
Middle East and the antipathy of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, the
sooner the United States begins developing this bonanza the
better.
Meanwhile, for the first time ever, this legislation would allow
some (37.5%) of the revenues generated to be shared with the states
affected by the drilling. Inland states now get 50 percent of
revenues generated by drilling on federal lands within their
boundaries, but coastal states get not a cent of revenues generated
by drilling in federal waters off their shores. This manifestly
isn’t fair, and the Senate bill would change this, at least for the
new area opened for drilling.
THE ADVANTAGES HERE DON’T merely accrue to the states that would
directly benefit, though. The money would be dedicated to
environmental protection and restoration, or infrastructure related
thereto. States like Louisiana would therefore be able to replenish
their coastal wetlands and build better levees — both of which
would mitigate the damage of future hurricanes that, under disaster
relief standards commonly used, would otherwise be paid for by U.S.
taxpayers.
Just as in the old oil filter commercial, it’s far better to pay
coastal states now (with new revenue, at that, which otherwise
would be available for neither the feds nor the states)
for protective measures than to pay them latter by bailing them out
after a storm has obliterated thousands of square miles.
Of course, there’s probably not a supporter of offshore drilling
who doesn’t recognize these benefits of this bill. But dozens of
key House conservatives are holding the Senate bill hostage in
favor of a House bill that also would open areas for drilling along
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They seem to ask why settle for a
fourth of a loaf when their own bill provides a whole loaf.
The problem, though, is that their loaf will grow not just stale
but both hard and moldy while they wait for enough senators to let
it out of the kitchen. There is just no way, with time running out
in this congressional session, to convince enough senators to
support the far-reaching House bill. Even worse, the White House
strenuously opposes the House bill — so even if it somehow
survives the gantlet of the Senate, the bill will probably be
serious veto bait.
THE TACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS MIGHT be different if the House bill
enjoyed a public groundswell behind it, or if expanded offshore
drilling were a new idea that might attract more support if only
senators got a chance to consider it longer. But that isn’t the
case here: Drilling supporters have been charging the same ramparts
for decades, trying and trying and trying again to get permission
to expand domestic energy production and share the revenues with
affected states. Senators know their positions on the issue, and
know those positions well; so the odds of them suddenly shifting
course in the next two weeks are about the same as the odds that
the Beverly Hillbillies will produce enough “Texas Tea” to power
every American automobile for the next half century.
Especially when the Senate bill would represent the first
successful expansion of offshore drilling after decades of trying,
it is not just misguided but downright senseless for House members
not to accept it as the substantial gain that it is, all in pursuit
of a politically impossible ideal.
Ronald Reagan taught that there’s nothing wrong with
incrementalism. Again and again, many of those who claim to be his
philosophical descendants forget Reagan’s lessons.
In Ronald Reagan’s image, then, the House conservatives ought to
vote to accept the Senate bill without a single comma changed —
and then, next year, continue their campaign to educate
the Senate about the merits of careful expansion of drilling in
other areas as well.
Any other course would represent fool’s black gold.
