Sound like President Obama’s green jobs plan? Try crude-oil black. Heritage was making the case for expanded offshore drilling:

[President Bush's decision to allow drilling restrictions to expire] sets out a sensible plan for moving expeditiously but not recklessly toward leasing new areas, including some in the Pacific, Atlantic, offshore Alaska, and the Gulf of Mexico. … Unfortunately, some in Congress have suggested that they may re-impose all or part of the moratorium, and past statements suggest that President Obama may want to do the same. Further, even without a change in the law, new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has the discretion to issue just a relative handful of new leases or simply drag out the leasing process indefinitely.

Speak of the devil. Just as this piece came out, Salazar announced that he was putting offshore drilling on hold for 180 days, to allow his department to review its energy policy.

Although he called Bush’s plan “a headlong rush of the worst kind,” Salazar did not say definitively whether the Obama administration planned to renew the three-decade-old moratorium on drilling along most of the country’s coastline.

During the campaign, Obama at first opposed offshore drilling but then embraced it as part of a broader energy solution when the public overwhelmingly supported it amid record-high gas prices. Now, with the price of oil at less than a third of its peak and green energy at the forefront of his economic plan, it remains to be seen whether he resumes his initial stance on drilling.

In the past year, the Obama campaign has made a lot of promises on energy, related to jobs, climate change, clean energy, gas prices and the list goes on. Now energy analysts, the environmental community and Americans struggling with a failing economy want to know exactly how the new president plans to deliver on these promises.

I was interested to see some of these issues broken down by Guy Caruso, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who formerly headed up the Energy Information Administration (the agency that does independent analysis for the Dept. of Energy). In an interview with E&E TV, Caruso discussed key points that Obama’s administration will need to keep in mind when tackling energy. Here are some that stood out.

Plummeting oil prices: Gas prices getting below $2.50 is good news for consumers faced with grim economic times, said Caruso. “[I]t’s like a tax cut when the average consumer now fills the car up for $40 instead of $60,” he said, implying that low gas prices will help Obama take on financial problems. But, that assumes Americans will use the same amount of gas that they used over the summer when gas was $4 a gallon. It’s still unclear whether consumer behaviors will change or remain the same, as I reported here.

Offshore drilling: Caruso says there’s no telling what position Obama will ultimately take on this. Obama, who initially opposed offshore drilling, eventually caved and publicly supported lifting the moratorium on drilling in coastal areas. This is exactly the same thing his opponent Sen. John McCain did — although Obama’s support didn’t quite reach the “Drill, Baby, Drill” levels that McCain’s did. Now, environmentalists are hoping Obama will flip-flop again, this time in their favor. Already, Obama Transition Team co-chair John Podesta, has said that the President-elect may reverse an executive order by lame duck President Bush which allows drilling in Utah. However, Caruso says, Obama may continue to support offshore drilling in other domestic areas in order to hold onto certain “bargaining chips.”

Green jobs: Over and over again, Obama has talked about creating 5 million green jobs. “And I think now reality sets in,” Caruso said. “I mean 5 million jobs is a huge number of jobs.” Plus, certain factors which could create green jobs could also eliminate other jobs. For example, Caruso talked about regulatory policies that affect fossil fuel industries. If a carbon tax is implemented, clean energy will gain a competitive advantage and green jobs will open up; but, that could potentially lose jobs for the oil, gas and coal industries.

Renewable Energy: While Caruso didn’t go into too much detail about how the new White House should think about clean energy, he mentioned a couple significant points. First off, the transition from dirty fuels to clean fuels will probably take decades. Obama, like most politicians, said Caruso, don’t like to talk about things in terms of decades. As for his administration’s first 100 days, Caruso suspects that Obama will have trouble getting a renewables-heavy energy package to pass Congress, even with a strong Democratic majority. However, incentives for renewable energy are sure to show up in a financial package, Caruso believes, so environmentalists can at least rest easy on that note.

But green business owners know that they face obstacles. This week, E&ETV looked at some of them in an interview with Natural Resources and Defense Council energy analyst Jim Presswood.

E&ETV’s Monica Trauzzi asked how the financial crisis will affect solar and wind industries. Although some businesses could feel the credit pinch as banks continue to struggle, Presswood said he thinks the rapidly growing solar and wind industries could help pull the economy out of its doldrums, especially as Americans look for alternatives to fossil fuels. The extension of the tax credits means that private investment will still be attracted to clean energy, Pressman added.

Trauzzi also asked how a Democratic-controlled Congress could battle over tax credits for solar and wind power for almost two years yet move quickly to lift a 30-year-old ban on offshore oil drilling.

I expected Presswood to say that the Democrats are a bunch of weanies. Instead, he talked about some of the legislative politics at play — with fights between the Senate and House, Democrats and Republicans and members trying to please commercial interests, including oil and gas companies.

Ultimately, the political game-playing resulted in the lifting of the ban on offshore drilling becoming “must-pass legislation” and the renewable-energy tax credits becoming “a vigorous game of ping pong.”

Presswood believes that alternative energy will receive even more attention in 2009 under a new president, and with that knowledge, green companies can more comfortably focus on growing.

(Flickr: arbyreed)

This is the second part of a two-part series on the political parties and energy. Part 1 focused on the Democrats.

While the financial crisis on Wall Street has put the faltering economy at the center of the presidential campaign, the see-sawing price of crude oil is still a big concern. The passage of a $700-billion financial bailout plan by Congress has made the future of highly volatile oil markets even more uncertain. Since the announcement of the plan, oil prices have fluctuated tremendously from one day to the next, reaching as high as $106 a barrel and — as of today — as low as $90 a barrel.

The high cost of gasoline is just one more economic burden that Americans are dealing with now. As a result, energy prices and U.S. dependence on foreign oil could remain pressing concerns for most voters, as the polls indicate.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

Many of Sen. John McCain’s answers to the country’s energy crisis, however, clash with the views of the GOP’s conservative GOP base. But some of the positions that his party stalwarts strongly oppose — including introducing climate legislation and keeping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off-limits to drilling — appeal to the independent and moderate Democratic voters whom McCain needs to win in November. Can the Republican nominee continue to run to the left of the GOP base and still hold on to its support?

To be sure, the majority of Republicans prefer McCain’s energy plan to that of Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic opponent. “The things that distinguish him from Obama would be that he’s more enthusiastic about drilling in the outer continental shelf and about nuclear power,” said David Kreutzer, an energy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy organization.

While McCain might be “more enthusiastic” about drilling, Obama has said that he will support opening off-limits coastal areas to drilling as part of a larger energy package. Neither he nor McCain favored expanded offshore drilling until this summer — when gasoline surged above $4 a gallon.

By contrast, McCain has consistently trumpeted nuclear energy and has proposed federal subsidies to build new plants. He says he wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants by the year 2030, though some nuclear energy experts aren’t sure that’s possible. There are currently 33 nuclear plants in the U.S., some with more than one reactor.

But on other energy-related issues, McCain runs against the GOP conservative mainstream, including his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and President George W. Bush. Chief among these differences is the fact that McCain does not support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

McCain also disagrees with much of his party base when he says that human activity affects global climate. He introduced legislation last year to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2010.

“He’s clearly not in the mainstream of the Republican Party when it comes to the global warming and environment stuff,” said Kreutzer. Many conservatives opposed the Arizona senator’s bill, the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act, that proposes a carbon cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. “He’s going to have to pull the Republicans along on that one,” Kruetzer said.

But not all Republicans need to be pulled along. Some young Republicans want to see McCain take stronger stands on environmental issues like climate change. “Young people are ready to see some new direction on energy,” Ethan Eilon, executive director of the College Republicans, said. “They want to see a balance in protecting our environment and making sure we do things in a climate-neutral way…[while] making sure we’re not hamstringing ourselves economically by being beholden to environmentalists.”

Eilon says young Republicans believe that developing solar, wind and hydro energy should be a GOP priority. “[Renewable energy] was first embraced by the younger segment of our party,” he said. “We understand the technology a little bit better.”

He backs McCain’s proposal to invest in technology to improve the way battery-operated vehicles run and to provide tax credits for consumers who buy low-carbon-emission cars. “Younger people, in general,” Eilon said, “are optimistic about the free-market possibilities for getting these types of projects completed.”

College Republicans do agree that more offshore drilling is an appropriate short-term response to high gasoline prices, Eilon said. They’re not alone. According to Rasmussen Reports, 42 percent of Americans polled think offshore oil drilling will reduce the price of oil — despite the government data that finds the opposite to be true.

More conservation-minded Republicans are equally supportive of McCain’s environmental views. They especially admire his flexibility on offshore drilling. “I think what Sen. McCain is saying,” said Jim DiPeso, policy director of the advocacy group Republicans for Environmental Protection, “is for states that do not want [drilling], he is not going to shove it down their throats.”

While McCain has not suggested that states should be forced to open their coasts to drilling, his rhetoric hasn’t exactly made that distinction. At a recent rally in Florida, for example, he said, “Drill, baby, drill!” — causing the crowd to begin chanting the phrase. (And Palin was clearly delighted to use the term in the vice presidential debate on Thursday night.)

Unlike the College Republicans, the political activist group Republicans for Environmental Protection doesn’t think offshore drilling is a short-term answer to easing high gas prices — though is open to compromise on the issue in the context of larger package to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

But like the College Republicans, it supports diversifying the country’s energy sources. “It’s almost like the conservative approach to investing,” DiPeso said. “You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. You want to diversify.”

As I keep saying in my reporting on the subject, government data indicate that offshore drilling won’t affect gas prices. Dept. of Energy projections show that such drilling won’t produce a drop of oil until 2030 — and even then won’t lower fuel prices.

By continually reminding people of this data, I know I risk becoming a bore to readers. But the reason for my repetition is this study, which finds that the DOE data has hardly been reported in the media.

Sierra Club president Carl Pope said today that he is optimistic that the ban on offshore drilling will return next year because there will be a “new Congress and president who understand that more offshore drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices or solve our energy crisis.”

Well, at least Pope is paying attention to the numbers.

After months spent vowing to protect the nation’s coastlines from new offshore oil drilling, House Democrats yesterday caved to the White House over the thorny issue, saying they will allow a 26-year-old ban on new exploration to expire.

If it stands, the move will permit oil companies to drill beyond three miles from both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — a far larger area than allowed under a Democratic proposal that passed the House last week. That bill would have prevented new drilling up to 50 miles from shore, but Democratic leaders, anxious to get out of town for the election season, abandoned their fight to avoid a budget battle with the White House — which threatened to veto the legislation.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

“At least temporarily, the moratorium is lifted,’” Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told reporters late Tuesday. “This next election will decide what our drilling policy is going to be.”

Politically speaking, the timing was genius. Most of Tuesday was engulfed by debate over the nation’s financial meltdown, with most of the media’s attention focused on a joint Capitol Hill appearance by Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. At the tail end of the tempest, Obey’s office informed reporters at 5:01 p.m. that the appropriations chairman would hold his brief press conference 14 minutes later.

House Republicans — who had spent much of August demanding a vote on a drilling expansion — were quick to declare victory. A statement released last night by the Republican Study Committee, headed by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), proclaims: “GOP Secures American Energy Development.”

More accurately, it was public sentiment that caused the Democrats’ reversal. With gas prices topping $4 per gallon over the summer, polls began to show that voters support new drilling by increasingly large margins. Their reasoning was flawed: The Bush administration’s own Energy Dept. has concluded that expanded drilling will have no significant effect on fuel prices before 2030. But Democrats were never successful in selling that message to voters.

“The public has simply not been made aware of the reality,” said David Jenkins, government affairs director of Republicans for Environmental Protection.

The development is bad news for environmentalists, who lobbied all year to keep the moratorium in place. Aside from the environmental dangers, they argue, increased drilling only heightens the nation’s fossil-fuel addiction, accelerating global warming and fostering a reliance on foreign oil. Some blasted the Democrats for dropping the fight.

“It’s just bad policy,” said Nick Berning, spokesman for Friends of the Earth. “The Democrats caved on this.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.), hoping to protect roughly 840 miles of California coastline, vowed to return to the battle next year. “I think it’s awful,” Feinstein said in a statement. “We will come back and fight another day — that’s for sure.”

The Sierra Club had pounced on Republicans for their insistence that the drilling ban be lifted, accusing the GOP of “opposing clean energy and being in the pocket of Big Oil.” The group went much softer on the Democrats for lifting the moratorium. Following Obey’s announcement, the group issued a bland statement placing its hopes in reinstating the ban next year.

“We do not expect that this is the end of the moratorium that has protected our coasts since 1981,” the group said. “The moratorium could very well be restored by a new Congress and president who understand that more offshore drilling will do nothing to lower gas prices or solve our energy crisis.”

Daniel Becker, a former Sierra Club official who is now director of the Safe Climate Campaign, agreed, pointing out that the few months before the next administration arrives is too short a span for companies to begin drilling. “I don’t think it’s going to do real damage,” he said.

Two separate moratoriums — rooted in environmental and tourism concerns — have prevented new offshore oil exploration for decades: one stemming from the White House and the other from Congress. President George W. Bush lifted his ban in July; the congressional ban, usually renewed annually in spending bills, expires Oct. 1.

The issue has posed difficulties for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.), a long-time opponent of new offshore drilling who, fearing a November backlash, reversed course when public opinion did. “They’re going to do what’s necessary to win in November,” Jenkins said. “That’s just the political reality.”

Pelosi’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Last week, Pelosi pushed through a proposal allowing state-approved drilling between 50 and 100 miles offshore, and all drilling beyond 100 miles. The bill was largely a political ploy: The Energy Dept. has determined that most of the country’s untouchable offshore oil — estimated at nearly 18 billion barrels — rests much closer to shore than the Democratic plan would have allowed. Indeed, most Republicans opposed the legislation.

The recent Democratic move, however, has brought only cheers from across the aisle. That, too, was a political calculation made with November in mind.

“It’s very hard for Republicans to attack Democrats,” Becker said, “for blocking something they’re not blocking.”

Nancy Pelosi, in a reversal, threw her support behind a bill to allow expanded offshore drilling. (Flickr: Orin)

In a move calculated to ease voters’ concerns over high fuel prices — and help their party in November — House Democrats easily passed a bill Tuesday night expanding offshore oil exploration.

The legislation, which partly eliminates a decades-old moratorium on new drilling, marks a sharp departure from earlier Democratic vows to keep the ban in place. The reversal was a political one: Public opinion polls show that voters increasingly support new oil exploration, despite evidence that the change would have little effect on fuel prices for more than two decades. Fearing political fallout in November’s elections, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a long-time critic of new drilling, included provisions to expand the practice.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

But Republicans — who have made new domestic exploration the top issue this election season — overwhelmingly opposed the bill, labeling it a hoax designed solely to provide Democrats with political cover during the campaign season.

“Today’s vote,” said Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), “was just for political show.”

Young isn’t wrong. The Senate is expected to scale back the drilling expansion, and the Bush administration has already issued a veto threat. More to the point, however, the House vote was 236 to 189, largely along party lines. The partisan division allows Democrats to navigate the election season claiming to have heeded voters’ concerns by approving a drilling expansion, while chastising Republicans for opposing the same issue they’ve so adamantly claimed to support.

How this game plays out on the campaign trail is anyone’s guess. The bill would allow states along both the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards to approve new drilling between 50 and 100 miles off their coasts. The Interior Dept., however, has determined that most known reserves rest much closer to shore.

Furthermore, the bill offers no royalties to states that agree to new drilling — providing little incentive for them to do so. Republicans will try to sell those messages on the campaign trail, but they’ll be relying on the understanding of the same American public that mistakenly believes increased drilling will offer immediate relief at the pump.

In addition, gas prices have plummeted in recent weeks as a result of decreased demand and, more recently, the chaos on Wall Street. The financial turmoil has pushed the issue of fuel costs from the headlines, and could continue to do so right through the election.

There are other reasons the bill stirred such partisan division. It includes, for example, the elimination of roughly $18 billion in tax breaks to major oil companies — a provision favored by a majority of Democrats but opposed by most Republicans.

The bill would also force the release of 70 million barrels of oil from the nation’s emergency reserves; provide tax breaks for efficient building construction and companies that promote bicycle commutes; allow oil shale development in some Western states, and require all utility companies to generate at least 15 percent of their power by alternative fuels by 2020.

But the drilling issue remains the most contentious. For that reason, some major environmental groups have been quick to denounce the House legislation. The National Audubon Society, for example, contends that the vastly expanded drilling would threaten wide expanses of the nation’s beaches and coastlines. The renewable energy provisions, Audubon maintains, don’t compensate for that new risk. “This bill does too little to bring about America’s clean energy future,” Betsy Loyless, Audubon’s senior vice president, said in a statement.

Brent Blackwelder, the president of Friends of the Earth Action, echoed that concern, saying the Democratic proposal “falls far short of what this country needs, and its inclusion of offshore drilling actually moves us in the wrong direction.

“Debate on this bill has been a waste of energy and a waste of time,” Blackwelder said.

The environmentalists probably need not worry. There’s no indication that the Senate, due to take up energy legislation next week, has the appetite for the same broad expansion of drilling passed by the House. One upper chamber proposal gaining traction, for example, would limit state-approved drilling to Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, while retaining the 50-mile buffer zone.

In addition, the White House issued a statement yesterday threatening to veto the bill if it reaches the president’s desk. The administration says that, taken as a whole, the bill would hinder oil and gas development rather than promote it.

Federal officials said there were no reports of major damage to the region’s critical oil, gas and petrochemical installations.

That sounds like good news, except that on page A-9, The Post runs another piece under the headline “Gas Prices Continue to Rise as Hurricane Destroys Oil Facilities:”

Gasoline prices once again soared across the country yesterday as federal officials said a preliminary survey of damage found that a number of production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

One assumes these were not the same federal officials.

Yesterday the Interior Dept. inspector general unveiled three lurid reports of sexual misconduct, drug dealing and partying with oil executives at Interior’s Mineral Management Services.

Today the House oversight committee said there will be a hearing next Wednesday to scrutinize MMS and their oil and natural gas drilling program.

The investigation seems to merit congressional follow-up. Particularly since the Justice Dept. has said, without explanation, that it won’t prosecute two officials that may have committed multiple felonies– Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of MMS; and Gregory W. Smith, the former director of the oil and gas program.

So what is the brewing scandal about? It seems to be a blanket indictment of the MMS royalty-in-kind program, in which natural gas and oil companies lease federal land and then give the government usually 1/6 of what gas and oil they extract.

MMS has 50 employees and, according to the IG report, 19 took gifts from oil and gas executives with “prodigious frequency.” Employees went to parties with oil and gas executives that featured cocaine and marijuana. Two female employees had sexual relationships with industry contacts.

But where the federal investigation really gets interesting are specific allegations against the former top officials Denett and Smith. Denett reportedly went out of her way to arrange MMS consulting contracts for two former colleagues. One, Jimmy W. Mayberry, has pled guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge related to his MMS consulting work.

An entire IG report, meanwhile, is devoted to Smith, the former royalty-in-kind director. Smith used his position to get an outside consulting job while he was stiill working at Interior; took gifts from oil and gas officials; had sex with two subordinates, and purchased cocaine several times from his secretary and her boyfriend.

Reaction to the scandal has so far focused largely on how it might effect Congress’s offshore drilling debate. After all, MMS is in charge of the Florida coast, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other resource-rich, federally owned land.

But these are no ordinary accusations of government mismanagement. Congressional investigators will surely focus on the broader issue of oil drilling. Will they also find out why Denett, Smith and several of their former colleagues aren’t being prosecuted?

Standing before a small crowd at a Michigan community college, Sen. Barack Obama mocked the seemingly oil-crazed GOP delegates.

“‘Drill baby, drill’ — what kind of slogan is that?” Obama asked, serving up gentle sarcasm to the supportive crowd. “I can see if you’re, like, cheerleaders for ExxonMobile, but that’s not a vision for the American future,” he continued, touting his plan to “find new areas of production” and jump-start a domestic “green-collar” jobs program.

Then Obama talked about the current book on his nightstand: “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” by the New York Times op-ed columnist Tom Friedman.

Displaying a soft spot for the cute jargon that has made Friedman’s tomes huge international best-sellers — 27 languages, two million copies! — Obama said he shared a commitment to improving America’s “energy technology.”

“The country that figures out this energy thing first,” Obama said, “they are gong to be country that leads in the 21st century. That’s the bottom line.”

He continued to channel Friedman: “He calls it E.T., energy technology,” Obama explained, stressing that his administration would prioritize alternative energy.

Jen Psaki, an Obama spokesperson, told TWI that Obama’s new drilling comments hammer home a key policy contrast between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

“While John McCain’s plan for energy independence starts and ends with drilling,” she said in Michigan, “Barack Obama will invest in renewable energy, create five million jobs, shift our focus to green job technology and work across the aisle to ensure that one of the first priorities is passing a comprehensive energy package when he is in the White House.”

You could say, “Invest, baby, invest” — but it doesn’t have the same ring.