House Dems to Let Drilling Ban Expire

Sources in the House of Representatives are reporting that House Democrats are set to allow the Congressional ban on offshore drilling expire at the end of the month when the fiscal year ends. If the report turns out to be accurate, it would represent an epic political victory for Republicans and underscore just how seriously the American people's demand for increased development of American energy sources shook Democrats' expectations for the fall elections.

A House staffer said in an e-mail that House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) is telling reporters that Democrats on the committee are quietly preparing to drop language extending the ban from a continuing resolution soon to be passed. That resolution will fund government operations until separate appropriations bills can be passed after the election. The Congressional ban on offshore drilling is in truth a moratorium on funding for the processing of new drilling leases. Congress has annually renewed the moratorium every year since it first passed the funding ban in 1981. But pressure from minority Republicans and polls showing overwhelming majorities of the American people supporting increased drilling in the face of high oil and gasoline prices appear to have won the argument.

House Republicans have led the fight for increased domestic energy production, spending the August recess holed up in a darkened House chamber holding protest sessions of Congress designed to pressure vacationing Democrats to come back to Washington to vote on drilling legislation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who once vowed never to allow a vote on drilling, nevertheless acquiesced somewhat when she allowed the chamber to vote on a limited drilling package last week. Republicans were not satisfied with the passage of that bill, and there were indications that the House drilling bill would not pass the Senate. Continued Republican pressure and widespread ridicule of the Democrats' energy bill in the press contributed to the decision to let the drilling ban die quietly.

If the report is accurate, Republican Congressional candidates and Sen. John McCain stand to benefit from successfully forcing Congress to bend to the will of the American people. McCain has made a call for increased drilling and American production a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. Democrats will attempt to take some credit for not standing in the way of the people's will by letting the ban die. But the energy issue has been owned by Republicans for the better part of the year. Republicans hope that the credit for it materializes at the polls in November.