INa year otherwise favoring Democrats, high gas prices served up a potential windfall for the GOP. House Republicans rallied around a shared opposition to the congressional ban on offshore drilling, and even John McCain got in on the act. By mid-September, two-thirds of the public supported lifting the ban. The Democrats, lacking the votes to renew it, let it lapse on Oct. 1.
The victory, such as it was, almost didn’t happen. In early August, when pressure on Democrats was at its highest point, five Republicans and five Democrats formed a “Gang of 10” in the Senate and put forward energy legislation that would have kept the ban in place for all but a small portion of the Outer Continental Shelf. In exchange for this tiny bit of drilling, the gang’s proposal called for a big chunk of subsidies for “green” energy, giving Democrats a soft place to land on the drilling issue. The gang ended up falling apart, but its flawed compromise will undoubtedly serve as a model when Democrats attempt to reinstate the ban next year.
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