Gang of 10: The Unnecessary Compromise

Back in 2001, President Bush wanted tax cuts worth about $1.6 trillion over ten years. He finally "settled" on $1.3 trillion over ten years. The reason that President Bush got almost everything he asked for was because tax cuts were then overwhelmingly popular. Looking at any poll on offshore drilling, one will see overwhelming support for any domestic drilling measure. As such, one would think that any compromise on any energy bill would be heavy on drilling. In fact, one would think that any compromise from the Republican side would allow any of the alternative energy measures only along with a heavy dose of new off shore drilling. This brings us to the so called the Gang of 10, a group of five Republicans and and five Democrats looking for a compromise energy bill. One would think that such a compromise would be heavy on off shore drilling. Instead, according to Kim Strassel, this compromise will only allow token drilling while being heavy in subsidies and taxes for alternative energy sources.

Ask GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer what he thinks of the recent "Gang of 10" Senate energy compromise, and his answer is short and not sweet: "I'd call it 40% tax increase, 10% energy and 50% snake oil."

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Or, maybe not. Any guesses as to Mr. Udall's other action this week? That's right. He embraced the Gang of 10's "compromise." It wasn't a huge sacrifice, since the proposal mostly limits drilling to a few coastal states, while spending $84 billion in subsidies primarily for the sort of "green" energy Mr. Udall favors. Meantime, he's betting the "bipartisan" nature of that bill will provide him political protection against Mr. Schaffer's attacks, while heading off more aggressive GOP drilling proposals in Congress this September.

Strassel focused on the Coloroda Senate race where Bob Schaefer the Republican is running for Senate after four years as a big wig at the oil company, Aspect Energy. His opponent, Mark Udall, had been using this position as a campaign issue. Udall has also long been an opponent of off shore drilling. Schaefer was able to spin the oil issue on Udall and use Udall's opposition to off shore drilling against him. He turned a nearly ten point deficit into a dead heat.

Now, as the article points out, Udall has not only flipped on off shore drilling but is backing this watered down Gang of 10 compromise. Throughout the piece, Strassel asks the relevant question of why these five Republicans would not only compromise to such bad policy but furthermore, why they would allow for such a great issue to be removed before November.

If this compromise becomes law, it would not only provide for nothing more than token drilling but allow all those Democrats in th House and Senate political cover to diffuse an issue that most are on the overwhelming minority side. So, why would these five Republicans compromise so pathetically? It's as though they were on the wrong side of the issue. Of course, they weren't. Drilling is the best polling issue where the Republicans are clearly for it and the Democrats are clearly against it.

There are only two politically acceptable options. The first is no compromise at all. This allows this to be an issue that is pounded over the heads of Democrats through November and used as a bludgeon against them. The second option is a compromise loaded in off shore drilling with token amounts of subsidies for alternative energy sources. It appears the Republicans in the Gang of 10 read the poll numbers upside down.