Maria Cantwell committed a gaffe. Actually, she committed a major gaffe. In Washington, a gaff is when a politician accidently tells the truth. According to this WND article, Democrats won’t allow a vote on increasing drilling. Here’s what she said:

In an interview with Bloomberg TV’s “Money and Politics” last night, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., explained Democrats don’t want to increase supplies of oil and gasoline because they want to wean Americans off of petroleum products.

Asked point-blank if Democrats in the Senate would consider how increasing the supply of oil would lower the prices that are pinching U.S. consumers, Cantwell replied: “Oh, we definitely want to move beyond petroleum. And so there will be a supply side offered by the Democrats and it will include everything from battery technology to making sure that we have good home domestic supply, and looking, as I said about moving faster on those kind of things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of natural gas.”

This fits with the Democrats’ energy policies for the past quarter century. Locally, it fits with El Tinklenberg’s first energy policy:

The evidence is in and speaks overwhelmingly; global climate change is real. It’s the biggest long-term challenge our nation and world face. Those who continue to deny its reality gamble with our children’s and grandchildren’s futures. We need to reduce America’s dependence on the coal and petroleum products that are the primary causes of global warming. Alternatives can be made available in bio-derived, nuclear, solar, and wind energy.

Ms. Cantwell’s stated position sounds remarkably similar to Mr. Tinklenberg’s first position. Once drilling caught fire, though, Mr. Tinklenberg’s position changed:

El Tinklenberg has promoted a comprehensive plan for domestic exploration to increase supply and investment in technology and greater efficiency to lower demand, which will result in lower prices for Minnesotans.

I’ve said before that I don’t know how you can be for reducing “America’s dependence on the coal and petroleum products that are the primary causes of global warming” while simultaneously advocating increasing drilling of coal and petroleum products.

At least, Sen. Cantwell’s stayed true to her position, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Democrats retreated from her statements either today or Friday at the latest. To their credit, Republicans aren’t going gently into that good night:

The point was underlined by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who said Democrats are not even permitting debate on legislation and amendments designed to increase the supply of oil and gasoline to U.S. consumers.

“Today, the appropriations markup that was going to include amendments that would open up the outer continental shelf and maybe even shale in Colorado and Utah was canceled,” she told the same Bloomberg interviewer. “It wasn’t postponed, it was canceled. So that indicates to me that the majority is not going to try to have an open debate, but I hope I’m wrong. If they have an open debate, and we’re allowed to have amendments, and we have a balanced plan that includes production in all the sectors, then I believe we can meet this problem in a bipartisan way, and that’s what we should be doing for America.”

The Senate Democrats’ position is identical to the House Democrats’ position. It’s actually a clever ploy on the Democrats’ behalf. Their candidates are free to say that they’re for increasing drilling (like Mr. Tinklenberg is doing) because they know that they’ll never vote on increasing drilling.

The bad news is that Ms. Pelosi’s and Ms. Cantwell’s views will be posted and bounced around the internet. The other consideration is that the American people want to see Congress getting things done. The Democrats, led by Ms. Pelosi, Ms. Cantwell and others, are being obstructionists.

We’ll highlight the fact that the DRILL Act was brought up under a closed rule because enough House Democrats would’ve voted to increase drilling on the OCS. That bill with that rule said that Democrats weren’t interested in having a serious debate on energy policy. It said that they were employing a my-way-or-the-highway tactic.

The good news is that this issue isn’t going away:

WND’s Joseph Farah is spearheading a grassroots battle to flood Congress, and particularly the Democratic leadership, with e-mails, phone calls, letters and text messages demanding action that can lead the country in the direction of energy independence.

“Right now, that means lifting the moratorium,” he says. “That’s the first step. If we can’t agree on that as Americans today, then we are in for a long period of national economic decline. If we can’t push Congress to do the right thing with even a strong majority of Democrats behind us, then this country is simply no longer a place where the will of the people means anything.”

It’s gonna be a long, hot summer and fall for Democrats if they don’t take substantive action to lower gas prices.

Now that we have their quotes to use against them, they’d be wise to just cave. If they hold fast to their positions, they’re gonna get beat up on this issue. I was gonna say that they’d get beaten silly on this issue but it looks like that’s already happened.

Technorati: Gas Crisis, Maria Cantwell, Nancy Pelosi, El Tinklenberg, Global Warming, OCS, Election 2008

Cross-posted at California Conservative