Pelosi: ‘Free Our Oil’
That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s catchphrase last week as she continued to grope for an energy policy. One of her ideas was to request “a small drawdown” in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, no irony intended. At least President Bush has finally called the Speaker’s bluff by rescinding the 1990 executive ban on offshore energy exploration.
With Mr. Bush’s belated decision yesterday, Congress’s moratorium on offshore drilling is now the last major political barrier to increasing domestic oil-and-gas production. Yet Democratic leaders have refused to schedule even a single hearing on the topic. House Appropriations Chairman David Obey recently shut down the annual budget process rather than allow Republicans to offer drilling amendments. He and the Speaker know that if they allow a vote, moderate Democrats are sure to defect and the offshore moratorium could end.
Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Bush’s announcement “a hoax” and made a few cracks about “the oilman in the White House,” continuing the Democratic strategy of blaming everyone from industry executives to “speculators” for the energy crunch. But none of those compare to world-wide demand, tight spare production capacity and inflation – the real causes of today’s record high oil prices. Easing access to the Outer Continental Shelf, with its likely low-end estimates of 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, is one of the few responsible long-term remedies.
Congress’s 27-year ban typically comes in the form of a rider to annual spending bills. This year the ban expires on September 30. To borrow Speaker Pelosi’s slogan …