David Freddoso had a great piece on the homepage yesterday on the political pickle that Democrats will find themselves in if they try to reauthorize the ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling. We know Nancy “Saving the Planet” Pelosi wants the ban to continue, as do a host of other Dems who want fuel prices higher in an effort to push CO2 emissions lower. And of course, Senate Environment Committee Chair Barbara Boxer — who thought Lieberman-Warner’s cap-and-trade plan didn’t go far enough, and so added 157 pages of amendments — is another Californian suspicious of cheap, plentiful power.

Now comes word of a new poll showing that a majority of Californians want drilling in the OCS. It’s a slim majority — 51 percent (the nationwide number is 69 percent, according to a CNN poll released yesterday) — but this is California we’re talking about, and from a San Franscisco paper, no less.

With high oil prices and calls from President Bush and Republican presidential aspirant Sen. John McCain to open coastal waters to domestic production, support for drilling has jumped, particularly among Republicans, the poll says. Support increases with age and is slightly higher among men than women. But as the price of oil hovers around $120 per barrel, double the cost a year ago, support for drilling has increased even among Democrats and independents, says the survey of 2,504 adult residents polled across the state July 8-22. At the same time, more than half of the Californians surveyed believe that the effects of global warming have already begun and pose a serious threat to the state’s economy and quality of life.

That’s right, the same poll had a majority of Californians believing in global warming and its ill affects — but they still want the oil. Pelosi and Boxer can’t be pleased to see their constituency thus undermining their salvific efforts. But as Freddoso noted yesterday, “Drilling is popular, and the Democratic majority is not.”