Obama is listening to the Cracker Squire: Signals Support for Wider Offshore Drilling if Part of Comprehensive Energy Policy Aimed at Lower Gas Prices

We recall that President Bush lifted nearly two decades of executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country’s shoreline in mid-July of this year (see 7-15-08 post).

Of course we recognize that the lifting of the moratorium — first announced by his father, President George Bush, in 1990 and extended by President Bill Clinton — had no real impact because a Congressional moratorium on drilling enacted in 1981 and renewed annually remains in force.

Since 1982, the ban on offshore oil and gas leases on the outer continental shelf — vast areas 3 to 200 miles offshore — has been renewed by Republican and Democratic presidents and Democratic and Republican Congresses.

Even since President Bush lifted the moratorium and being fully aware of and knowledgeable about the arguments on both sides, I have being doing posts under the theme that the rules of the game have changed, and I say let's drill.

Already McCain has changed his position, and yesterday Obama indicated a willingness to compromise his as well.

From The Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama suggested on Friday that he could accept an expansion of offshore oil drilling as long as it was part of a broader package of measures that would free the logjam of energy bills in Congress.

Republicans have consistently said they could craft legislation that would expand oil exploration on the outer continental shelf without jeopardizing delicate shoreline habitats. But Democratic leaders in Congress have been ardently opposed. Environmental groups, a key constituency, have been unyielding in their opposition.

Instead, Democrats crafted a rhetorical answer to the GOP's drilling campaign, calling on companies to begin oil drilling on the millions of acres both on- and offshore that have already been leased to them but remain untapped. Obama has taken up that line as part of his standard stump speech.

But with rising gasoline prices, polls indicate voters increasingly side with the Republicans, even here in Florida, where opposition to offshore drilling has always been strong. McCain switched his own position on the issue earlier this year, as did Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R), who had also been opposed.

[A proposal would] lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida's beaches and in the Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if the states agree to oil and gas development along their coasts. The states would share in revenue from the development.

Drilling bans along the Pacific coast and the Northeast would remain in place under the compromise.

With this step behind both campaigns, I predict it is only a matter of time before both campaigns begin to relax their opposition to drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska in the Alaska North Slope region.

See also The Wall Street Journal that notes:

Sen. Obama, who has opposed further offshore drilling despite it being a politically unpopular position, told reporters he "remains skeptical" of drilling provisions in pending legislation designed to lessen dependence on foreign oil and ramp up development of alterative energy, but he said he would be willing to compromise.

"If we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise in which I have to accept some things I don't like or the Democrats have to accept some things they don't like… that's something I'm open to," Sen. Obama said while speaking to reporters at a Radisson hotel.

"What I don't want to do is for the best to be the enemy of good here," he said. "[I don't want] partisan bickering or the desire to score political points to get in the way of providing some genuine relief to people who are struggling."

With its sprawling coastline and tourism industry, the topic of drilling hits close to home in Florida, a key battleground state that both candidates have visited this week. The state voted Republican in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

Sen. Obama tried to calm local fears on Saturday when a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times asked him how he would protect Florida's coastlines. He said he would be strongly opposed to "anything that would have an impact on that extraordinary treasure, not just of Florida's, but of the country as a whole."