WASHINGTON, D.C. — Celebrating the end of the House
Republicans’ five-week energy protest, Florida congressman Adam
Putnam beamed from the Capitol steps, “The House Republicans would
like to welcome the Democrats back to Washington, D.C.!”
Unfortunately for Putnam, Republican Leader John Boehner, and
the other House Republicans who turned out for the press
conference, the only Democrats on the Capitol building steps were
members of the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and other
environmental groups. Dressed as polar bears, holding signs with
lines such as “Drill it, Spill it, Kill it,” and chanting “Shame on
Big Oil!” the roughly a hundred protesters managed to hijack the
crowning moment of the Republicans’ own protest. The Republicans,
however, aren’t as worried about protesters as they are confident
in their energy strategy for the fall elections.
Since August 1, when Majority leader Nancy Pelosi suspended
Congress for a five-week vacation, delaying a vote on domestic oil
production, over one hundred House Republicans returned to D.C. to
stage a protest over the Democrats’ inaction on the House floor.
When Pelosi had the House microphones and lights turned off, they,
unplugged and in the dark, demanded that Congress return for an
energy vote.
Sensing a chance to seize control of a major storyline for
November, the Republicans tried to hustle as many journalists and
visitors onto the House floor to listen to Republicans rail against
Pelosi’s obstruction of an important vote on a winning issue for
Republicans. Although the House chamber C-SPAN cameras were turned
off, and the mainstream press mostly ignored their efforts, the
Republicans used blogs, Twitter, and word of mouth to try to
publicize their foregone vacation.
Now, with the Democrats back from vacation and the offshore
drilling ban set to expire at the end of the month, the Republicans
want finally to force Pelosi to hold an up-or-down vote on the
American Energy Act. “All we ask for is for Pelosi, Reid, and Obama
to work with us… and open debate on a comprehensive U.S. energy
plan,” Putnam announced to cheers from his fellow House Republicans
and loud boos from the protesters.
IT’S OBVIOUS, though, that the Republicans don’t think the
demonstrators on the Capitol steps are representative of the U.S.
electorate. Indiana’s Mike Pence hit the populist note, shouting,
“Speaker Pelosi, you can turn off the lights on the House floor and
turn off the mics, but you can’t silence the voices of the American
people.” He also went straight to the heart of the issue: “The
price of energy is costing U.S. jobs.”
Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee also stressed the economic
importance of drilling, complaining that “the family budget can
only take so much.” Boehner gave the environmentally friendly an
excuse to hop on the “drill now” bandwagon, claiming oil revenues
mean, “the more drilling, the more renewables investment.”
A vote on energy and offshore drilling could come this week, but
at this point votes have more to do with politics than with energy
policy. The people cried out, “drill, baby, drill” at the
Republican National Convention, and even Nancy Pelosi heard them.
While she remains committed to opposing offshore drilling and
drilling in ANWR to appease the hard left, she encouraged junior
members with tough races ahead of them to support drilling
measures.
Before the spike in oil and gas prices this summer, the economy
and energy were losing issues for the Republicans. Once gas crept
above $4 in June, however, the Democrats’ monopoly environmentalism
was rendered useless as Americans embraced Newt Gingrich’s “Drill
here. Drill now. Pay less.”
At that point, the Republicans, not beholden to green
constituents, pressed their advantage by refusing to go on
vacation, thereby casting Pelosi and Barack Obama as out of touch
with the people’s economic struggles, and John McCain (who
subsequently picked an extremely pro-drilling running mate) and
other Republicans as men of the people.
During the Republicans’ protest in the darkened House, Pelosi
even compromised so far as to promise a vote on
offshore drilling as part of a comprehensive energy plan. She and
the Democrats moved too late, however, to prevent the Republicans
from accumulating the political capital that they began cashing in
yesterday with a press conference on the steps of the Capitol.
