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Obama’s Off Shore Drilling Plan Aims to Win Climate Votes

WASHINGTON — President Obama, after delaying and deliberating for a year, unveiled a controversial new offshore drilling plan Wednesday that was driven largely by the politics of his agenda on energy and climate change – not getting a lot more oil and natural gas anytime soon.

As a presidential candidate, Obama was attacked by Republicans for not supporting all-out expansion of offshore drilling. And one of his administration’s first acts after taking office last year was to cancel the long-term offshore plans President Bush had released at the end of his tenure.

But now, the White House seems its new drilling plan as a way to curry favor with Republicans and moderate Democrats whose support will be critical for comprehensive energy and climate change legislation.

Under the new plan, Obama proposed to begin moving toward drilling off parts of the Atlantic and Alaskan coastlines – along with the Eastern Gulf of Mexico – in areas that have been off-limits to oil and gas exploration for up to three decades.

The proposal includes no drilling off California, Oregon or Washington state, or in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, which environmentalists consider especially sensitive.

The President pitched the decision in national security terms and called it “part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy.”

Analysts cautioned that, under the most favorable circumstances, the plan would take years to begin producing new oil and suggested it would not reduce oil imports or gasoline prices substantially. Increased jobs and other economic benefits also are at year several years away.

But making a commitment to develop new domestic supplies of oil and natural gas – especially off shore – is seen as an important overture to Republicans and other conservatives, who attacked Obama relentlessly on the issue in 2008.

A small bipartisan group of Senators is trying to piece together 60 votes to pass some version of the President’s long-sought bill to limit greenhouse emissions and boost clean-energy production. The new off-shore plan is aimed especially at potential Republican votes for the bill.

They were also a primary target for Obama’s earlier proposal for loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants.

“The president’s view is that what he did today is an important part of moving (a climate bill) forward,” deputy press secretary Bill Burton said after the drilling announcement. “The president’s view is that this is the best policy, and that working with members of the Senate on both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats, this is policy that people of both political persuasions can agree to and we can move forward on.”

The outreach drew warm, but not overwhelming, reviews from its target audience.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the senators drafting the climate bill and a major proponent of using the legislation to expand drilling, called Obama’s plan “a good first step” but said “there is more that must be done to make this proposal meaningful and the game-changer we all want it to become.”

The spokesman for another drilling proponent and potential GOP climate bill supporter, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, also praised Obama’s drilling plan but said Murkowski will judge a climate bill “by its own merits.”

Perhaps bolstering his case to moderates, Obama’s announcement drew harsh criticism from the poles of both parties. Conservatives complained it would “lock up” more swaths of ocean than it would open to drilling.

“If the president is trying to offer an olive branch in order to pass climate change, this hardly qualifies as any major step,” said Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the top Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee.

Environmental groups accused the President of exposing marine ecosystems to damage and exacerbating global warming.

“It makes no sense to threaten the East Coast of America with spills and other drilling disasters when we’re about to unleash the real solutions to oil dependence — cleaner cars and cleaner fuels,” said Anna Aurilio, who directs the Washington office of the non-profit Environment America.

Industry groups offered modest support, though some questioned whether the administration will follow through and lease all the areas included in the proposal.

Analysts project little immediate impact from the plan – which still faces a public comment period and other administrative hurdles – on oil supplies or gas prices. A 2009 analysis by the federal Energy Information Administration suggested that a new drilling plan substantially larger than the one Obama proposed Wednesday would only serve to cut gasoline prices 3 cents a gallon by 2030.

Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in an interview that the economic boost from Obama’s plan could be three to five years away.

“If this gets going, it would create a lot of onshore jobs,” particularly in hard-hit East Coast shipping communities, he said, “but not overnight, by any means.”

Even as they touted the drilling plan as proof of Obama’s commitment to all types of domestic energy production, administration officials cautioned drilling alone would not produce anything close to energy independence.

“It’s still a relatively minor amount relative to the oil and natural gas that we import,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters after the announcement. “This is not the panacea, and it’s not the answer to the issues that we face in this country.”
[Los Angeles Times]

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