Gang Of 16 (Senators) Comprise Energy Plan

Compromise energy plan deserves support
Editorial
Athens Banner-Herald Story updated at 5:34 pm on 8/28/2008

Yes, it's an election year, and yes, that often means policy debates are driven more by public-opinion polling than practical reasoning. But that doesn't mean an effort in the U.S. Senate to put a national energy policy in place - an effort in which Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss is playing a leading role - should be written off.
Earlier this month, Chambliss and Democratic U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota began assembling a bipartisan coalition of senators behind a proposal that would combine increased drilling for oil with the allocation of billions of dollars in funding for the development of petroleum-free vehicles and tax credits for renewable energy, according to media reports.
However improbable it may be in today's intensely partisan political climate, Chambliss and Conrad have reached across the aisle and built considerable support for the two-pronged approach to addressing the energy conundrum that now has Americans facing gasoline prices in the neighborhood of $4 per gallon. The two senators' approach is the very essence of how politics - often defined as the art of compromise - is supposed to work.
Since the beginning of their initiative, Chambliss and Conrad have assembled a bipartisan group of 16 senators - a group that, by design, comprises an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and already includes Georgia's other U.S. senator, Republican Johnny Isakson - who are working to implement a sensible approach to the energy issue, balancing the need to increase the supply of fossil fuels with the need to develop alternative sources of energy.
Initially, Chambliss' and Conrad's bipartisan group comprised 10 senators. The group's rapid growth to the current count of 16 is an indication there may be a critical mass of senators in place for action on the compromise energy policy proposal when Congress' summer recess ends next month.
Briefly, on the supply side, the proposal calls for lifting a ban on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and along the southeastern U.S. coast. It also would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and facilitate construction of oil refineries and nuclear plants. In opting for this approach, the Republican members of the Gang of 16 are splitting from the GOP majority view that drilling should be allowed along the entire Atlantic and Pacific U.S. coastlines. Democratic members of the Gang of 16, in signing on to the proposal, are breaking from their party's bias against any expansion of oil drilling.
Obviously, if the proposal does make it through the legislative process unscathed, neither side will get everything it wants. Republicans will have to settle for less drilling than they might want, and Democrats will have to settle for a less-than-complete focus on alternative energy development, although they would get $20 billion in funding for such initiatives.
What the compromise will do for both sides, though, is to bring them in line with what the American people want them to do. According to an Aug. 11 report from Rasmussen Reports on its recent telephone survey, "(n)early two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) support going ahead with offshore drilling" while "(f)orty-eight percent favor (Democratic presidential contender Barack) Obama's proposal to give $4 billion in federal aid to the troubled auto industry to build fuel efficient cars ... ."
The plan will need 60 votes to get through the Senate. If the senators who haven't yet signed on are smart, and the American people are lucky, the Gang of 16's proposal will get far more than 60 votes.