Drilling duo claims way to sidestep a shutdown

The bipartisan duo who authored a compromise on offshore oil drilling say their plan may be the best way to avoid a government shutdown now that Republican leaders have flatly rejected Democrats’ first effort to allow exploration off the coasts.

Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and John Peterson (R-Pa.) led a group of more than two dozen lawmakers from both parties in drafting legislation to allow drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The key selling point of their plan is diverting one-third of the royalties to support alternative and renewable energy.

{mosads}“We believe we’ve got the best way forward,” said Peterson spokesman Patrick Creighton. “Our bill is a compromise that everyone can live with.”

The plan has 130 co-sponsors, but more than half are Republican, which may be due to the fact that the essence of the bill is closer to the GOP’s pro-drilling platform. It doesn’t include Democratic priorities like a mandate for renewable electricity, nor a plan to force energy companies to “use or lose” the leases they currently have on federal lands.

But the bill’s sponsors say they are picking up more Democratic support, including that of Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who led the Democratic leadership’s efforts to curtail excessive oil market speculation.

And Abercrombie and Peterson have the support of at least 36 Democratic sponsors, which could be enough to get to a majority of the House if even more Republicans sign on in the coming days.

There are also signs of high-level interest in the bill. House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sought out Abercrombie for discussions in the last week, but it isn’t known what they said.

But Democratic leaders are still vying for their own victory in the form of a leadership-driven drilling bill that can successfully find its way out of the House, and will again try to accomplish just that as early as this week. Democratic aides say they are hoping to win the votes of vulnerable Republicans, who might not want to face charges of obstructionism in the fall campaigns.

Over the weekend, Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson of Connecticut laid out the Democratic drilling and energy plan in broad strokes. He said Democrats want to allow a handful of East Coast states to “opt in” to drilling off their coasts.

{mospagebreak}Supporters of Abercrombie-Peterson say Democratic leaders could win over some of the members of the bipartisan working group by including the crux of the plan — linking the offshore drilling to renewable energy.

But Larson’s radio address Saturday signaled a different tack. He indicated that the Democratic plan would include the Democrats’ signature “Use It or Lose It” provision, which draws special enmity from Republican leaders.

“That’s a poison pill. We know that,” said an aide to a lawmaker who supports Abercrombie-Peterson.

{mosads}Republicans and some “Oil Patch” Democrats have criticized “Use It or Lose It” as deceptive and unnecessary. Still, the last time the House voted on it, 26 Republicans supported it.

Republican leadership aides are making it clear that they have no intention of giving Democrats an easy win on energy.

“This proposal sounds like just one more sham bill that the Democratic leadership has cobbled together in another pathetic attempt to give their members political cover — without offending their special-interest allies who actually want even higher gas prices,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Republican leaders say they want nothing less than consideration of their own “All of the Above” energy plan. And they might get that, if Democrats seek to pass their plan by simple majority.

For most of the summer, Democrats blocked votes on Republican alternatives, worried they might lose a confrontation on drilling with gas prices peaking. But the tactic meant Democratic proposals needed a two-thirds supermajority to pass. As a result, none of them passed, leaving the issue stalemated when Congress left for the August break.

Now that Pelosi — initially in an interview with CNN’s Larry King — has agreed to an offshore drilling vote, there’s less need to dodge a vote on the Republican plan. Even so, Democrats will need to sweeten their own plan enough so that their own conservative and vulnerable members won’t feel the need to support the Republican alternative. Leadership aides said Pelosi won’t bring her plan up for a vote unless she’s confident of victory.

A Democratic leadership aide said that the strategy is to get something passed that takes OCS off the table before Congress turns its attention to the continuing resolution that’s needed to keep the government running.

If they don’t succeed in that, Congress could face a government shutdown, since the current drilling moratorium is linked to the annual spending process.