Well, it happened: in the midst of election season, during the double-whammy of an energy crisis and a financial collapse, the Democrats have let go of the reigns on an extremely important environmental issue: offshore drilling. They’ve been railing against letting the 26-year-old ban expire all year, and when it came down to it, they gave in to pressure from Republicans. Nice job.
From The Guardian:
Although the drilling debate dominated the campaign dialog for much of last month, the McCain camp had little to say when Democrats announced late yesterday that their plan to fund the government until next spring would let the drilling ban expire.
That silence is proof of the financial markets’ sudden rise to the top of the US political agenda, as well as a recent decline in fuel prices.
A few Democrats from coastal states, however, openly lamented their party’s decision to give ground in the face of a White House veto threat on the funding plan.
“I think it’s awful. This battle is not over,” California senator Dianne Feinstein, an ardent opponent of coastal drilling, said. “We will come back and fight another day, that’s for sure.”
Part of the problem is, undoubtedly, a false perception among the public that offshore drilling will ease the energy crisis, which many believe would in turn help lessen the blow from the current meltdown in the financial markets. Unfortunately, the idea that offshore drilling will have any impact at all on the energy market for at least 10 years is about as realistic as believing that Santa Claus really does drop down millions of chimneys on one night, or that John McCain would be a good president.
The Sierra Club, at least, is holding on to a sliver of hope: they released a memo to reporters that relayed their belief that a new president could turn this thing around, saying, “The moratorium could very well be restored by a new Congress and president who understand that more offshore drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices or solve our energy crisis”.
Link [The Guardian] via [Truthdig]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
