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Here's a note to add to Dave's excellent post earlier today. It's a paragraph from yesterday's Wash Post "Sunday Briefing" section: "The White House had hoped to win permission this year for oil and gas drilling off the coast and in the Alaskan wilderness. But $3 per gallon gasoline and record oil company profits have now generated such a backlash that any bill favoring the energy industry is unlikely to pass."

COME AGAIN???!?!?!??!?! If lawmakers had any ability to combine principle with common sense, $3-per-gallon gasoline would give them MORE reason, not less, to promote drilling offshore and in ANWR. Greater domestic production, of course, would allow supply to at least partly catch up with demand, thus reducing prices long-term. It should be a VERY easy argument to make. (Greater energy independence also is important for national security reasons, too, of course.) Allowing more drilling isn't a sop to the energy industry, it's a boon to consumers. If this GOP Congress can't even figure that out or explain that, and if its members are so scared of demogoguery that they run screaming away like scared two-year-olds, then that is yet another reason to believe (IF this Post paragraph accurately describes the state of play on Capitol Hill) that this is the worst collection of unprincipled (and stupid) political hacks that I've ever seen.

topics:
Law, Energy, Alaska, Oil