A while back I wrote a Corner post on the “Gang of Ten,” which is a group of five Democratic and five Republican senators that has proposed a compromise energy bill. The gang’s bill would allow limited offshore drilling in exchange for $84 billion in new subsidies for alternative energy. The gang has not proposed a way to pay for all the new spending, except to suggest that raising taxes on oil companies would offset part of it.

I wrote the post because there was some confusion in conservative circles over why five Republicans would support such a bill. I pointed out that the bill heavily favored biofuels, and that four of the five Republicans had major biofuel interests in their states. I wrote that the fifth, Lindsey Graham, just seemed to have a mania for joining bipartisan gangs.

Yesterday, Sen. Graham called me up to explain his membership in the Gang of Ten in more detail. The main reason, he says, is nuclear power. “We’ve been able to incorporate into this proposal the construction of a nuclear-fuel reprocessing center within one year,” Graham says. “That is a revolutionary breakthrough in nuclear policy, and a rejection of the Carter doctrine.” (Jimmy Carter cut off federal funding for the construction of a nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant in Barnwell, South Carolina in 1978, which doomed the project.)

I asked Sen. Graham if John McCain, for whom he has been campaigning, supports the gang’s proposal. He said:

John is very happy that we’re moving forward. He would rather pay for conservation and alternative energy by cutting spending… He likes the investments we’ve made in tax credits for hybrid cars, though he might have a different amount in mind… He thinks we should be voting on energy. And if this allows us to go back into session and start voting, he’s for that.

I asked Sen. Graham if it wouldn’t be better simply to let the ban on offshore drilling expire, as it is scheduled to do in October. He pointed out that Democrats would attach the ban to a continuing resolution funding the government, forcing the president and congressional Republicans to engage in a politically risky standoff. It’s a battle that Graham predicts Republicans would lose. “Northeastern Republicans aren’t going to shut down the government,” he says.

Sen. Graham also rejects Kim Strassel’s argument that the gang’s proposal has given Democrats political cover to support drilling, even though the proposal’s drilling provisions are very modest and leave the Pacific coast off-limits:

The right is upset that we compromised on drilling. They’re upset that we’re asking for contributions from [i.e. raising taxes on — SS] the oil companies. But if we can get the Democratic party to embrace drilling on the East Coast and western Gulf and sign off on nuclear energy and the recycling of spent nuclear fuel, I’ll say thank you. I’ll say thank you.