How the Next Few Months Could Play Out

by: Matt Stoller

Sat Aug 09, 2008 at 12:12


This is worth reading.  The GOP believes they have a winning hand on gas prices and drilling.
Matt Stoller :: How the Next Few Months Could Play Out

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How the Next Few Months Could Play Out | 22 comments
Hmm. (4.00 / 2)
More and more, I'm thinking Nate Silver is right and Obama should endorse the Gang of 10 compromise in the Senate. It's actually a compromise and not just another word for capitulation, so I think the benefits of getting on board could be substantial for Obama.
Instead, why don't Dems... (4.00 / 2)
Pass an omnibus spending bill which states that new offshore leases will only be allowed after existing leases are put into operation?

Game. Set. Match.

No new leases will be granted. Dems can claim that they are allowing new leases. Republicans lose their talking point and the whole thing is exposed for the scam that it is. Oil companies are not going to develop new leases. They are spending their record profits buying back stock, not buying new oil platforms. They just want the leases as assets to hold and profit from. They can trade them, hold them, use them to raise capital, etc. They make gobs of money without having to actually drill. It's a scam.

Call their bluff. "You get new leases after you develop the ones you have."

Check and mate.

miasmo.com

[ Parent ]
I like it (4.00 / 1)
Congress needs this bargaining chip. Democrats want to use the chip & get the oil pumping. Republicans want to give the bargaining chip away & get no oil in return, but lots of campaign donations and cushy oil industry jobs when they rotate out of government.
[ Parent ]
Yeah (4.00 / 2)
this needs to be about the oil companies sitting on existing claims, waiting for the price to go up, rather than about a lack of domestic production.  Pelosi's been trying to push that talking point, but no one else seems to be backing her up.
[ Parent ]
In fact, I'll one up that (4.00 / 3)
ban exporting any new oil development.  If they drill, that oil goes to the US, and the US only.  Sell the Republican position as a giveaway to Exxon.
[ Parent ]
It's not so much sitting on the oil (4.00 / 1)
IIRC the leases they have are deep water and the ones they want are in-shore, where it is cheaper to drill.  Higher proces are needed to make the off-shore ones profitable.

But the basic idea of requiring them to use or lose them is sound.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

[ Parent ]
Free Market = Corporate Welfare (4.00 / 3)
"Giving away US lands to private multinational corporations to produce oil for the global market (China) won't help solve the energy crisis" is an argument Democrats win if they're willing to make it.
We need to Drill Oil Shale . . . (0.00 / 0)
trumps the factual but complex argument that Oil Shale contains hydrocarbons, but the cost in water and money and energy and carbon emissions is greater than the energy that can be recovered.

Like Atrios says, Teh Stupid it Burns!!! -- but stupid arguments with a strong gut level appeal trump complex data every time.

It easy to understand why the GOP is pinning it's hopes on a pair deuces -- gas prices and drilling -- because everything else they have stinks.

If Obama ties McCain to Bush, and smacks him down in Ohio with ads like Backyard, it will almost impossible for the GOP to win. Of course, they'll always have Diebold -- but even that may not be enough.

dKos diary with link to Backyard -- DHL jobs lost because of McCain.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...  

Makes some real sense to me (4.00 / 4)
Demand dropped when oil hit $148 a barrel.  Right after the Dem convention we come to the end of the summer driving season, when  prices typically drop as inventories increase.  Right now there is even a glut of oil, if not gasoline.  Prices typically increase later in the year in anticipation of heating oil needs, but now gasoline prices have dropped and should be dropping even further.  In other words, unless gasoline station owners keep prices up to compensate for some of their pricing problems earlier in the year, gas prices should drop.  Food prices should also drop as transportation costs drop and corn ethanol is less of a problem.  In short, to some extent the market is working.

I don't see a problem with Obama endorsing the "Gang of 10" proposal, so long as it includes the huge subsidies for alternatives and the repeal of oil company tax breaks.  It puts McCain in a real bind, in that he has to go against the oil companies, his new BFFs, and support a bipartisan compromise that he was no part of (something he hates to do), or look like an obstructionist.  It calls the GOP's bluff as long as the Dems hang tough on revocation of the oil tax breaks, huge new subsidies and stringent environmental controls on drilling.  And the Pacific Caost, North Atlantic and Alaska Wildlife Refuge remain off-limits.  Personally, if the people of Georgia or Florida or the Carolinas don't care enough about their coast to oppose off-shore drilling, so be it. Just keep your hands off the Pacific Coast. In the end, there will likely not be enough GOPers to vote for it, and it won't pass, and we sill get something better next year, or the bill can be fixed next year.

It seems to me that IF the Dems hang tough on this, it is a win/win for Obama and the Dems and a real loser for McCain.  I know Nancy Pelosi cares a whole lot more about the environment than our constitutional rights, nd the public is educable on the issue, so I am optimistic she will hold on this one.  I'd like to see more people here develop a sense of nuance and strategy about energy and not see things as all one way or its a cave of historic proportions.  

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

bills can be fixed (0.00 / 0)
People also need to understand that bad bills can be fixed.  This needs to be emphasized.  "Caves", if they are caves, are not permanent.  
[ Parent ]
The 'Gang of 10' (0.00 / 0)
includes 5 Republicans, so if the Dems hold (always questionable), that leaves needing only 5 more. Cloture failing with a majority of 50-lots votes would look even worse for the Republicans (can you say "obstruction"?) -- and if it passes, that's even better. Basically, the only way Dems lose is if they want to lose, and vote against it. Unfortunately, judging by history, I'm betting that this is the likely outcome.
[ Parent ]
Not sure what the Obama camp thinks they are doing (0.00 / 0)
I simply cannot believe that Obama has been making an effort since the day he clinched the nomination (or even before) to get out in front on the oil/gas issue. I mean, it simply defies explanation. It is hard not to conclude that the Obama campaign has no idea what it is doing. This is one of the most salient issues in the country right now, and it is an issue that the Democrats ought to own. If we get beat by the GOP on oil, of all things, maybe it's time to fold up the tent.
Oil companies are EXPORTING refined products to keep domestice prices high! (4.00 / 4)
Yes, that's a simplistic, demagogic way to describe this July 3 Reuters article, but hey, this is politics.

Author Tom Doggett writes, "A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007." He even connects the dots: "...environmentalists and other opponents to expanding drilling areas could seize on the record exports to argue Congress should not open more acres if U.S. refineries are churning crude oil into petroleum products that are sent out of the American market."

Why are drilling opponents not spreading the word about this? If the public are capable of understanding offshore drilling as a "supply and demand" issue, they are certainly capable of seeing that corporations like Exxon would end up selling much of the products refined from offshore oil to other countries, if the profit was greater.

It's too much to ask most people to understand the global nature of the oil market (i.e., that our price at the pump is directly affected by the desire and ability of people in Shanghai to buy oil), so we should cast the issue in ethical terms; Big Oil has no loyalty to the American consumer. They are already sucking up our oil and selling the refined products overseas, so obviously we can't trust them to use offshore oil to lower our domestic gasoline prices. I'm not crazy about the jingoistic implications of such an argument, but we're trying to win an election.

Brilliant!!! -- another opening for Obama (4.00 / 1)
The Windfall Profit Tax and Consumer Energy Credit is a good start, but going after Big Oil for exporting refined petroleum products to manipulate the market is one of those populist trump cards that totally boxes in the GOP, and exposes them as tools of Big Oil.
[ Parent ]
Republicans are going to shut down the government? (0.00 / 0)
I doubt that very much.  Gas prices are already declining.  The Gang of 10 has a compromise already in place that will pass.  That guy is smoking something.  



New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

More on oil leases (4.00 / 2)
Oil lease sales are very complex transactions that take months, sometimes a year or more to put out to bid and even more for companies to prepare their bids.  Even if Congress didn't extend the ban on offshore drilling, it is my understanding that it would take well into the next Administration for actual lease sales to take place, let alone any drilling, and so the whole thing could be reeancted in January.  Now it is possible the Bush/Cheney regime has something like no-bid leases ready to go with the connivance of the oil industry, but I'd doubt they would really go along with it, knowing there is going to be an even more Dem Congress next year.  Businesses hate uncertainty.  Plus the Dems could hang it around McCain's neck.  So it may be a bluff.

The tactic of tying the extension of the offshore drilling ban to a continuing budget resolution is complicated as well.  Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution (if memory serves it isn't subject to a filibuster) because Bush threatened to veto all of the remaining spending bills in the form the Dem Congress wants them, so they have been kicked over to next January and the new Congress.  A continuing resolution is needed to fund the gov't after Sept 30 when the fiscal year ends.  Pelosi almost certainly not allow a standalone upperdown vote on extending the ban on offshore leases, so the GOPers will refuse to pass the continuing resolution, which would then fail only if not enough Blue Dogs refuse to vote for it as well.  Or they would tie it up in procedural knots.  If it doesn't pass by Sept 30 Bush will have a variety of tactics open to him, such as closing the Washington Monument or refusing to fund something important.  Of course it would be the GOP blocking it in time of war.  And they would all have to hang around in DC and not be home campaigning, something the more endangered GOPers may not be willing to do. (IIRC the last time Gingrich did this it was not an election year.)  It isn't clear that the GOP would come off looking better, especially of the Dems have the Gang of 10 proposal as an alternative.  And remember a TN Congressman who was one f the grandstanders was just defeated in a primary by an opponent who tied him to Big Oil.  

It will be enbtertaining to watch this little game of multi-level chicken play out, but I doubt it is really a strategy that will convince the voters that the GOP really understands how to govern better than the Dems.  Obama should stick to his compreehnsive energy package and keep telling the voters we need solutions not guickie gimmicks.  I think enough of the public is smart enough to see through the theatrics.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

Wrong strategy in an election year (0.00 / 0)
I was right--Gingrich's shutdown was in 1995, not an election year.  The highly endangered GOP rank and file aren't going to go through with this and hang around DC in October of an election year.  This is just an empty threat.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
Hooray (0.00 / 0)
"I think enough of the public is smart enough to see through the theatrics."

I think a pony will magically appear at midnight.

The pony will shit golden eggs filled with gasoline.

[ Parent ]
I said "enough" (0.00 / 0)
Not the whole public, though.  Enough is 50.5% is enough.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
Na (0.00 / 0)
I don't think the public is nearly as smart as you do.

We're a country that's still trying to decide if evolution is for real or not.

[ Parent ]
you have that pony's brain (0.00 / 0)
You also resemble other aspects of that pony's anatomy for your disrespectful post, but I won't list those specific anatomical parts.

Or, tell us about your campaign and public policy credentials.  

[ Parent ]
Astroturf (0.00 / 0)
A quick search turns up the background of this piece by the "vice president of public affairs for Americans for Prosperity"

Americans for Prosperity is an oil industry front group established and funded by the oil giant, Koch Industries.

It's easy to see why the Koch family would plant and nurture sockpuppet groups like AFP. Koch can't just come out and say we should ignore global warming, because their self-interest is too obvious. AFP is currently on a nationwide tour touting its new framing language regarding global warming, calling environmental proponents "alarmists" and pro business anti-environmentalists "realists."

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkr...

How the Next Few Months Could Play Out | 22 comments
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