The GOP's Oil Spill Vulnerability

Republicans are trying to pound Obama over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but because their energy stance has been so pro-drilling and opposed to environmental safeguards, their attacks lack any credibility.

Some of us in attendance at the 2008 Republican Convention had a terrible sinking feeling when Michael Steele shouted out his “drill, baby, drill” slogan for the first time. We knew that his simplistic and cavalier answer to our nation’s energy woes was ill advised— and since the U.S. sits atop only 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, not even based in geologic reality.

More unfortunate than the slogan itself, is the fact that “drill, baby, drill” accurately sums up the extent of the GOP energy plan to date. That has left Republicans in poor position to take advantage of President Obama’s missteps related to the Gulf oil spill—in fact, environmental groups have modified Steele’s slogan to fit the occasion: “spill, baby, spill.”

Republicans and right-wing talk radio personalities are trying to pound Obama over the oil spill, but since their energy stance has been so pro-drilling and opposed to environmental safeguards, their attacks lack credibility and fail to present a coherent message.

One minute Republicans are lamenting the fact that spill containment and clean-up capabilities are woefully inadequate and criticizing Obama for allowing deepwater drilling without adequate safeguards. The next minute they are complaining about his temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling.

Essentially, they are saying let’s move forward with deepwater drilling even though we do not have adequate safeguards to prevent or contain an accident. Isn’t that exactly what they are trying to criticize Obama for?

The wackiness doesn’t stop there.

While many Republicans attack Obama for his inept spill response, Joe Barton (R-TX), the GOP’s ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is singing a different tune.

At the Texas GOP Convention earlier this month Barton, flanked by several oil industry executives, proclaimed that “fortunately, much of the BP spill had been contained.” Shortly thereafter he, along with 15 other GOP congressmen, called for expanding offshore drilling.

Then, Congressman Barton infamously apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for White House pressure, which Barton dubbed a “shakedown,” to have BP establish a $20 billion dollar escrow account to pay claims for those economically damaged by the spill. Barton was forced to later retract his statement, but the same “shakedown” language has been used by Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Tom Price (R-GA) to decry the escrow account.

Republican attacks on Obama for the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) too-cozy relationship with the oil companies are missing the mark because much of this coziness became entrenched during the Bush Administration. Republicans in Congress have a history of running interference for the agency.

At a 2008 House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Interior Department Inspector General’s investigation that found MMS employees literally in bed with oil company officials, Republicans dismissed the investigation as overblown. Just a few bad apples, they argued, turning a blind eye to the systemic rot within MMS.

The same year, Republicans aggressively (and successfully) agitated to end the Outer Continental Shelf drilling moratoriums that had been in effect since the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989.  The slogan then was Newt Gingrich’s “drill here, drill now, pay less.”

The GOP’s failure to gain traction in seeking the moral high ground of oil spill politics is also due to the party’s long-running assault on 1970’s era environmental laws—laws that were passed with huge bipartisan majorities and signed into law by President Nixon.

At least since the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, Republicans in Congress have launched effort after effort to weaken laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires environmental reviews before projects such as oil drilling can move forward. Often, these efforts seek to exempt projects from environmental review or reduce the amount of time an agency has to complete a review—which fit right  in with MMS’ go-along, get-along approach to oversight that led to the spill.

The sad truth is that there is nothing in recent GOP policy positions related to energy and the environment that provides Republicans a solid foothold from which to attack the Obama administration for the oil spill and its impacts.

Perfectly legitimate attacks come off as hypocritical.

If we own “drill, baby, drill,” then we cannot help but be tarred with “spill, baby, spill.”

Future attacks would be more successfully launched from high ground—but until the GOP makes a clear break from the fossil fuel-centric policies of the past, renews its commitment to the responsible stewardship of our natural resources, and probably springs for a few dozen muzzles, that moral high ground will remain out of reach.