Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

For the first time in 26 years, Democrats in Congress are supporting offshore oil drilling and the presidential candidates agree. How have we suddenly come to this?

1.    Rising public fury at paying $4 per gallon at the pump while big oil rakes in the cash. People want a quick fix and they don't much care how it's done.
2.    Incumbents in Congress, anxious about their re-election prospects, need buckets of campaign funds from the oil companies right now if they are going to survive: "You-all contribute and we'll vote for offshore drilling".
3.    The bipartisan coalition that resisted new offshore leases since 1982 has collapsed in the wake of this panic at the pump and the cries of "Drill here, drill now" by a well oiled $50 million ad campaign. Public opinion polls contrived by industry have amazingly "discovered" that domestic drilling is more popular than ever before
Since late in the 20th century, North Coast voters have supported Democrats for federal office as the primary bulwark against oil industry threats to our wild and rugged coastline and Democrat candidates have carried Mendocino County by over 60%. Now, in response to a weak challenge by his Republican rival John McCain, Democrat Senator Obama has blatantly abandoned his opposition on environmental grounds and supports new coastal oil lease sales as part of a supposed total energy package.

The Republicans, tutored by the oil and gas lobby, have come up with a stupidly simple solution to high gasoline prices: "Lets drill for more oil here at home and stop messing with those damned Arabs!" The only major untapped US oil reserves are along the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) some 25 or more miles from our beaches.  Until now, the two major parties have cooperated in attaching a rider to the Interior Department's appropriation bill each summer that declares a year-long moratorium on the Federal Government's issuing new oil and gas leases offshore. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has kept the moratorium from being voted down by calling for a "suspension of the rules". This means that a 2/3rds majority is required for any major bill to be approved; it limits debate and allows no amendments. Pelosi no longer has the votes needed to pass the moratorium, and if she tries to pass it by a simple majority, Bush is sure to veto it.

Is Pelosi to blame? After all, she's supposed to be the disciplinarian of the 233 ambitious, rapacious and highly motivated Democratic political sharks in business attire. Along with the 202 similarly outfitted Republicans, they are in a continuous feeding frenzy. Her main means of discipline is to cut the poorly behaved out from the feeding pen. But why must they eat so much? Well it's just that the cost of re-election keeps escalating and new Representatives quickly acquire a taste for that fishy essence that membership provides. Nancy's job is to make sure these sharks are regularly fed and disciplined, and the public never told that it is actually the fish-feeders who run our government: the investment bankers, the oil industry, major corporations, and the military suppliers.

Pelosi restrains only about 200 loyal Blue Dog Democrats but can no longer resist the tide. Consequently she decided in August to reverse her position against offshore oil drilling and buy off the beasties. She now says that some new drilling could be included in a broader energy bill if advocates "can prove its viability as a solution to America's energy problems". She proposes a sweet-smelling overall energy plan that also throws bucks towards alternative energy programs, puts controls on oil futures speculation, releases oil from our Strategic Reserves, and encourages drilling on government lands. She even claims her program will "free our oil" from the grasp of those nasty Arabs. At the same time she warns that: "Expanded drilling would not affect prices for a decade and then only to a small degree. I don't think that's a good alternative."  She hopes we will not smell the rotting fish she has spread amongst these goodies: she has signaled her willingness to opening the coasts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to drilling as a "sop to the beast." Florida is likely to be exempted. In the Senate, a bipartisan group called the Gang of Ten (last count 16) is supporting a similar bill.

Technically speaking, the Drill America Now slogan is a lie. US retail gasoline prices have more than quadrupled under Bush not because of supply shortage but due to international manipulation of the futures market and monopolistic strangulation of world refining capacity to a point that threatens the stability of the global economy. As a result, oil conglomerates are reaping unprecedented windfall profits with no substantial challenge from either the Republican or Democrat parties. The real answers are effective, federal regulation of oil company operations in the US, disgorgement of monopoly profits, conservation, and economic conversion to renewables and sustainable technologies. But with only weeks to go before the election, the Democrat congressional leadership fears that voter reaction to oil company price engorgement-at-the-pump could cost them a majority in Congress. As the pressure builds, it is clear that the new acceptability of expanded OCS drilling among Democrats will allow them to not only falsely posture as addressing high fuel prices, but also simultaneously suck in oil industry campaign contributions.

In this situation, Mendocino County Democrat party environmentalists find themselves in a painful conundrum: how can they support Obama if his posture weakens the delicate political compromises that have preserved our own precious coastline for 26 years? Democratic party leaders are reassuring them quietly behind the scenes to trust Obama and Pelosi, support the party ticket and all will work out. The Green Party has a different idea:

Go ahead and vote for Barack Obama if you want, but send a message to Washington by voting for Carol Wolman instead of Democrat incumbent Mike Thompson for Congress on November 4th. Why should we buy into this sordid drama of big oil money and hungry Congressional sharks?

How does our Congressman Mike Thompson propose to deal with this dilemma? In 2007 he co-sponsored in 2007 with Sonoma Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey a bill to prohibit new oil drilling up the coast as far as Point Arena and later introduced (HR 2758) that would extend the same prohibition all the way up to the Oregon border, but neither of these well-intentioned efforts help us through the current dilemma. They do give Mike some cover. Right now he's just waiting for Pelosi to tell him what to do. Four years ago he won re-election by 67%. He assures his victory with a $1.5 million campaign war chest paid for by Washington PACS. By significantly reducing his super-majority, North Coast ocean advocates will signal to Democrat congressional leaders that there are consequences for pandering to the oil industry's lies.

The Green Party nominee for Congress Carol Wolman is a nationally known peace activist and a long-time resident of the Mendocino Coast. She has long advocated permanent Ocean Sanctuary protection offshore California, as well as conservation and restructuring of the national economy to renewable and sustainable energy technologies. So long as corporate lobbyists for big oil and the military industry control Congress, we can expect that war and environmental havoc will continue. Put a Green in Congress!