Flashback: Compromise on energy
When is a flip not a flop? When the candidate making the statement sets down, at least for the moment, on the position you've favored all along. Such seems to be the case today with Barack Obama's latest statement on energy policy. (With the Olympics about to start, let us be the first to appropriate the phrase, "He really stuck the landing.")
On July 11, a Buffalo News editorial stood with Sen. Chuck Schumer in calling for a compromise between the mostly Democratic position on energy -- stressing conservation and efficiency -- and the Republican one -- drill, drill, drill. We don't think drilling, offshore, in the Arctic, or anywhere else, is the long-term answer: In the short term, though, increased drilling might indeed be necessary, as we wait for alternate forms of energy to come on-line. Democrats might shift their emphasis from banning increased drilling to making sure a new generation of exploration is properly designed, policed and taxed.
Sunday, though, we came out against oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes: Too much risk for too little reward.
Elsewhere:
* Washington Post neo-con Charles Krauthammer argues that it would be better for the planet if the U.S. drilled for its own oil, as it would do so much more carefully than almost anyone else: The United States has the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling. Today, directional drilling -- essentially drilling down, then sideways -- allows access to oil that in 1970 would have required a surface footprint more than three times as large. Additionally, the United States has one of the most extensive and least corrupt regulatory systems on the planet.
* The Wall Street Journal double dips on Obama, attacking his stance on a windfall profits tax [What is a "windfall" profit anyway? How does it differ from your everyday, run of the mill profit?] and on his new openness to drilling offshore [So Mr. Obama is now doing a modified, limited switcheroo to block any John McCain traction on the issue.]
* A New York Times editorial calls for a pox on both their parties for letting another year go by with no national energy policy.
* On the other coast, the Portland Oregonian makes a similar argument about inaction: Instead we get this: Lawmakers hurrying out of town to get back to their campaigns, where they will talk, talk, talk about gas prices and other energy issues. It'll be just more hot air -- the one puny resource this Congress seems ready to contribute to the nation's energy crisis.
--George Pyle/Editorial Writer
