As gas hits $5, Gang of 10 turns to 20
By Tom Baxter
Southern Political Report
September 15, 2008 — Numbers – especially really big ones – are of fleeting importance in politics. It’s the little numbers that matter.When President Bush asked Congress for an additional $87 billion for the war in Iraq back in 2003, the price tag briefly became a point of controversy between Republicans and Democrats, most of them taking their first baby-steps of opposition to the conflict. That figure has since been superseded by many billions more. This year a similar figure, $84 million, was tucked away in the New Energy Reform Act, the proposal advanced by the U.S. Senate’s so-called Gang of 10 to promote alternative energy development. Conservatives have fulminated about the price tag, and the Republican members of the gang are talking about whittling down to about half that figure for tax incentives, research money and new money for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But like the energy bill being offered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi which is expected to come to a vote Tuesday, money has never really been the political flashpoint in this bill. Instead, it’s the provision which opens the door to oil drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf within 200 miles of the nation’s coast, ending a 26-year congressional moratorium. The Senate bill has a decidedly Southern stamp. Seven of the original “gang” – Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C,) Marry Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) – are Southerners, joined by Midwesterners Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and John Thune (R-S.C.). Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill would allow more drilling off Florida in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Atlantic off Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Both bills would allow drilling as close as 100 miles offshore, or 50 miles with the permission of the states. It’s a proposed compromise which pleases neither side in the off-shore drilling issue. But as of last week, the Gang of 10 had expanded to the Gang of 20, with the recent addition of five Democrats and five Republicans, including Sens. John Warner (R-Va.) and Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) What drives the interest in finding some kind of compromise on energy is a small number: $5, which is what gas was getting to in the wake of Hurricane Ike at stations across the region. Although the spike in prices is due to the fact that storms affect offshore production, it’s the reminder to the politically endangered of both parties of the urgency of doing something. Barack Obama drew a good deal of liberal ire when he voiced support for the compromise, and Republicans like Chambliss, who spearheaded the effort at compromise with Conrad, have drawn fire from conservatives outraged that Democrats are being given an escape hatch on the drilling issue, for a compromise which some experts say won’t open the most promising offshore areas. The bill’s an escape hatch in both directions, however. The money for development of things like hybrid automobiles and solar heating systems isn’t as politically touchy as the drilling issue, although the American Taxpayers Union has condemned supporters of the bill, because much of this would be funded through increased taxes on energy companies. But like their Democratic counterparts, embattled Republican incumbents would rather take that rap than be perceived as doing nothing to stop the downward spiral of energy dependency. Five dollars trumps $84 billion, any day. |
