We know that more drilling in Alaska and off the US coastlines won’t mean jack when it comes to lowering gasoline prices for the next twenty years, at best, and then it will have only a marginal effect (a few cents per gallon) on the price of gas.*

No matter. As I predicted, the Democrats are caving to the relentless GOP calls for more drilling, repeated uncritically all too often by our inept/corrupt/stupid news media (pick any qualifier than you think applies). They have begun to produce a bill that will — shock of all shocks! — allow more drilling in Alaska and off our coastlines, even as another hurricane barrels into the Gulf of Mexico, threatening oil rigs and refineries.

After absorbing months of criticism for inaction on the high cost of gasoline, House Democrats yesterday began assembling broad energy legislation that allows greater drilling off the Atlantic coastline and Florida’s gulf shore.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and her leadership team, emerging from a nearly two-hour meeting with the Democratic caucus, offered a plan that marks a policy reversal for Democrats. It would allow more offshore drilling in exchange for additional funding for renewable resources.

Pelosi said the ideas were a framework for legislation that could come to a vote by the end of the week. “It will put us on the path to make America energy-independent,” she said.

The most controversial provision, which drew fire from conservatives and liberals alike, would permit drilling 100 miles off the Atlantic coasts from Virginia to Georgia, and in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s western coast.

Nancy Pelosi, and all the other gutless Democratic officials who suddenly decided to drank the GOP’s “Texas Tea,” Let me state unequivocally what you are: a bunch of stupid cowards and sellouts. This won’t help a damn during the election, because Republicans will still attack Democrats for being against oil drilling before they were for it. All it will do is make the lobbyists for Big Oil (who can justify their high fees to their clients, now) and the McCain campaign team happy. The people running McCain’s campaign will still say that whatever bill you produce doesn’t go far enough and will continue to run their duplicitous ads claiming Democrats oppose American energy independence.

You want proof that Republicans will use this lame ass bill against you? Well, they already are:

Republicans rejected the plan, saying the limits placed on the Atlantic and gulf coasts would seal off areas closer to shore that could produce the most oil.

“It leaves most American energy under lock and key when we should be doing everything possible to expand energy production, increase conservation and promote development of clean, renewable energy,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner said in a statement yesterday. “It would permanently lock up 80 percent of our nation’s offshore energy resources — holding hostage billions of barrels of American oil.”

Congratulations. McCain’s campaign manager couldn’t have scripted a better outcome if he’d tried. Instead of attacking Republicans for the lies they admit they are telling about the effect of more oil drilling, you chose the coward’s way out. Now, not only do you piss off your base, but you’ve managed to appear wishy-washy and unprincipled to millions of Americans who don’t follow politics much, but do recognize the smell of rank hypocrisy (it smells like defeat, by the way) when they come across its stink. You’ve reinforced the meme that Democrats don’t stand for anything but their blind ambition for power. Heckuva job, Brownie Ms. Speaker!

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* According to the Bush administration’s Department of Energy as described in their latest analysis released in June, 2007, any effect on oil and gas prices from greater off shore drilling won’t occur before 2030, and even then will likely be “insignificant.”

The projections in the OCS [ed. note: short for Outer Continental Shelf] access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than 2012, and production would not be expected to start before 2017. Total domestic production of crude oil from 2012 through 2030 in the OCS access case is projected to be 1.6 percent higher than in the reference case, and 3 percent higher in 2030 alone, at 5.6 million barrels per day. For the lower 48 OCS, annual crude oil production in 2030 is projected to be 7 percent higher — 2.4 million barrels per day in the OCS access case compared with 2.2 million barrels per day in the reference case (Figure 20). Because oil prices are determined on the international market, however, any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant.