Paying The Oil Bill

TPM's Brian Beutler argues that the Deepwater Horizon disaster may have scuttled the Democrats' energy and climate bill.

In the peculiar world of the United States Senate, the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has actually intensified existing divisions, drawing offshore drilling foes into growing conflict with oil patch Democrats and industry friendly members, who continue to support exploration, and incentives, for new drilling.

With oil still gushing from the well at a calamitous pace, a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, furious Senators threatened Tuesday to block any climate and energy bill that would lead to more drilling off the U.S. coast.

"If I have to do a filibuster...I will do so," Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) told reporters Tuesday.

And so he may.

Nelson is perhaps the most outspoken of a group of anti-drilling Democrats, that also includes New Jersey Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez. They were none-too-pleased when President Obama greenlighted oil exploration--and, potentially, full scale drilling--along vast swaths of the Outer Continental Shelf in order to shore up support from pro-drilling Democrats. But the BP spill drove them into full revolt.

That wouldn't be a problem at all if other senators, and industry players, viewed the Gulf catastrophe as oil's Waterloo. But if anything, the opposite has happened. The bill's authors see offshore drilling as one of the keys to bringing oil-patch Democrats and Republicans into the fold on climate and energy legislation--and they are unwilling to allow the industry coalition they put together to be fractured by the backlash. At the same time pro-drilling senators have seemingly doubled down.

While I do admit that the disaster is going to make passing any sort of energy bill more difficult, I think in the end what does pass will be better for it.  The oil industry is going to be the big, big loser here.  The pubic will demand that on both sides.  I think even more than financial regulation, offshore drilling regulation will become a huge issue in November when the full extent of the damage is apparent to horrified voters.

Nelson, Lautenberg and Menendez are ahead of the curve.  It's Joe F'ckin Lieberman and his buddies who are on the wrong side of this one.

The problem of course is time.  If there is anything remotely close to a silver lining in this world-class catastrophe, it's the speed of it unfolding will kick even the Senate's collective ass into gear.