President Obama's plan for offshore drilling has suddenly and dramatically reshaped the climate change debate. For the sake of argument, I'm going to put aside my concerns for what this proposal would mean for our environment. Let's instead look at the political rationale for the move: to win Republican votes for a climate change bill.
Please join me over the fold.
Earlier today on The Plum Line, Greg Sargent posted an article on Sen. Kerry's reaction to the President's announcement. Here's the money quote:
"In the difficult work of putting together a 60 vote coalition to price carbon, Senator Kerry has put aside his own long-time policy objections and been willing to explore potential energy sources off our coasts as part of a suite of alternative solutions. He and his colleagues are committed to find acceptable compromises on onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration, conducted in an environmentally sensitive manner that protects the interests of the coastal states." (Bold is in the original)
In the post-Scott Brown political environment, we should expect to hear this much, much more through the rest of the year. Without 60 votes, and with reconciliation not an option again until next year, we'll need to win at least one Republican vote to break a filibuster.
Of course, the Democrats were engaging in this behavior well BEFORE Scott Brown was elected! Since Day One of the Obama Administration, in fact. And this compromise got us a grand total of ZERO votes for the health care bill.
My concern is that once again this isn't being thought out long-term. For all the talk of multi-dimensional chess, the President seems to consistently engage in short-term transactional politics. What happens if that doesn't work? If the Blue Dogs and Wingnuts continue to block this bill anyway, will offshore drilling be removed? Or will it stay in despite having failed to achieve its political objective?
Bottom line: if the President is adding offshore drilling to the bill to win votes, then he should make sure that those votes are locked up before doing so. Otherwise, he's giving recalcitrant Members a license to steal. They'll keep demanding more goodies until the bill is nothing but a special interest giveaway that fails to move us toward a climate change solution. And then we'll have the worst of both worlds: a bill that fails on policy AND on politics.