Since the recent explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the politics of the climate bill have become more complicated, according to the New York Times. The newly perceived safety risks make it difficult to include increasing offshore drilling as part of any new policy. The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill is being pitched as an energy independence and climate bill all in one. Liberals had accepted increased offshore drilling as part of that bill because they accepted that no passable climate measure will drastically reduce our dependence on oil in the near future, so they reasoned that we might as well drill it ourselves. The explosion has made that harder to justify.
I suspect that this new twist will produce tax credits and incentives for nuclear power and “clean coal” even larger than the ones already agreed upon. My reason: the ads in the last issue (April 29) of The New Republic. One from an electric-company-funded climate-advocacy group, one from a nuclear advocacy group, one from a builder of nuclear power plants, and the back cover from the builder of a “clean coal” plant. The coal and nuclear crowd’s lobbyists are putting the full-court press on the Democrats, while Kerry has already announced that the oil companies like his bill; it may be difficult for them to take that back. With that in mind, I think that coal and nuclear will take much of the pork that was meant for offshore oil. And I don’t think that Republicans will fight too hard for their supporters in the oil industry, just as they seemed to have given up the Wall Street fight.
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