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Spill brings more urgency

Published 3:01 pm Tuesday, June 1, 2010

As the BP oil spill destroys nature’s delicate balance in and along the Gulf of Mexico, it may also upset an uneasy political balance in Congress — one that supports badly needed legislation to move the nation toward a cleaner, sustainable energy future.

Backers of a comprehensive climate and energy bill have focused their gaze on Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who helped write the bill introduced this month by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). Graham backed away from the bill to protest procedural moves by Majority Leader Harry Reid, and many had hoped a reversal on Reid’s part would bring Graham back into the fold. Now, though, Graham is balking because, he says, the BP spill will make it harder to expand offshore oil drilling — a key part of the bipartisan compromise Graham helped negotiate.

Understandably, Graham says he won’t back a bill that doesn’t have the votes to pass. He worries that because anti-drilling sentiment has hardened among Democrats, it will take more Republican votes to approve a compromise than he can deliver.

We would remind Graham’s GOP colleagues of a few key points:

  • Offshore oil drilling hasn’t stopped, and won’t anytime soon. In a press conference Thursday, President Obama reiterated that many of the most viable alternatives to oil remain in development, meaning that domestic oil supplies will be needed for years to come. What Obama has done, wisely, is to push the pause button on offshore drilling expansion until the cause of the BP disaster can be determined and addressed.

  • The climate bill written by Graham, Kerry and Lieberman would put a cap on carbon emissions, a move that’s fundamentally necessary to reduce global warming and make clean-energy alternatives more competitive. It would use a market-based system of trading emission credits to enforce those limits, which is why Graham and at least some other Republicans have expressed support for the plan.

  • A broad group of major businesses supports this cap-and-trade idea, along with new clean-energy incentives in the bill — industrial giants like Weyerhaeuser, Dow Chemical, Ford, General Electric, Alcoa and Shell Oil. In a letter of support to Congress and the White House, they noted that America faces “a critical moment that will determine whether we will be able to unleash homegrown American innovation or remain stuck in the economic status quo.”

    That’s really the key question — whether our nation will be a leader in the clean-energy revolution that’s coming, or allow others to seize the economic benefits because we couldn’t break out of an outdated, dirty-energy mold.

    As the true depth of the disaster in the Gulf emerges in the coming weeks, so should the answer.

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