DEMOCRATS AND OIL DRILLING

The Democrats are playing serious politics with the oil issue which is understandable given the pressures within the party.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position of increasing domestic energy production. So the last failsafe is to shut down Congress.

Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too taxing for "the world's greatest deliberative body." This week he cut off serious energy amendments to his antispeculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert Byrd abruptly canceled a bill markup planned for today where Republicans intended to press the issue. Mr. Byrd's counterpart in the House, David Obey, is enforcing a similar lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says she won't allow even a debate before Congress's August recess begins in eight days.

In today's Dallas Morning News Dave Michaels had an article "Energy Bill Subbed." It deals with profits made from selling off some of the strategic oil reserve. It gets complicated, but the bottom line is that Democrats reversed policy in the past few months. Since the bill could have help ex-Congressman DeLay's Texas district, Democrats originally opposed the bill--now that a Democrat holds DeLay's old congressional seat Democrats are for the bill.