By Michael Swartz
It’s beyond question that the oil industry is down on its luck right now, and the black eye received from the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico is a shiner which will stay on its public face for quite awhile. And while radio host Stephanie Miller claimed the Gulf oil spill as proof that “God is a Democrat,” the Democrats who sit among us mere mortals in Congress are taking direct aim at what they sneeringly call “Big Oil” with two particularly punitive measures.
With Democrats’ first try at cap-and-trade (better known as Waxman-Markey) stalling in the Senate after a contentious House vote, last week Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman brought forth their version of energy legislation. Originally sponsorship crossed party lines when Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, agreed to back the bill, but Graham withdrew his support when Senate leader Harry Reid decided to press for passage of immigration reform rather than this measure.
That’s not to say Graham would be staunchly against the proposal. But the sticking point he sees is that, “problems created by the historic oil spill in the Gulf…have made it extremely difficult for transformational legislation in the area of energy and climate to garner bipartisan support at this time.” Predictably, Democrats representing waterfront states like Florida, New Jersey, and Maryland are already coming out dead set against the additional oil exploration included in Kerry-Lieberman, a tradeoff intended to get Republicans to support a bill which would levy taxes on greenhouse gas emissions and, as studies have concluded, be a net job loser.
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