Obama Setting The Energy Agenda... As McCain Scurries After Him Towards A Compromise

Obama disappointed serious conservationists and clean energy advocates when he offered to consider a compromise with the energy companies (through their bought and owned Republican politicians). Short version-- the Republicans stop obstructing alternative energy measures and he will consider environmentally safe expansion of offshore drilling. "My interest," Obama told the Palm Beach Post is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage-- I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done... I made a general point about the fact that we need to provide the American people some relief and that there has been constructive conversations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on this issue. What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems. If we've got a plan on the table that I think meets the goals that America has to set and there are some things in there that I don't like, then obviously that's something that I would consider because that's the nature of how we govern in a democracy."

Obama's position might not seem heroic but, given the political realities, it's reasonable. Democrats need to keep explaining that Big Oil already has already leased almost 70 million acres of federal land and isn't searching for oil at all, just sitting on it waiting for the prices to go even higher. At the urging of oil companies, which have doled out countless millions of dollars to them in the last decade, Republicans voted en-masse against Use-It-Or-Lose-It proposals that Democrats had put forward to make oil companies drill on leased land or give up the leases to companies that will.

But while the media is accusing Obama of flip-flopping on oil and while a handful of congressional Oil Industry shills like Tom Cole (R-OK- $277,050), John Culberson (R-TX- $301,961), Tom Price (R-GA- $24,500), Lamar Smith (R-TX- $342,897), John Shadegg (R-AZ- $119,495), and Mike Pence (R-IN- $150,950) are planning on continuing their stunt on the House floor today, this morning's NY Times reports that McCain is running after Obama screeching "me too, me too." The McCain camp took a moment out of their racist smear campaign against Obama to make sure the poor confused old man they are backing is seen as someone willing to compromise on energy too.

Nancy Pfotenhauer, a McCain economic adviser, told CNN on Sunday that “Senator McCain is open to compromise packages” on energy.

Mr. McCain had earlier dropped his own opposition to offshore drilling, saying that soaring gas prices demanded new approaches.

Obama will be unveiling his energy plans later this morning in Lansing, Michigan. Here's the ad his campaign started running today: