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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appears to have threaded the needle in the energy plan she’s bringing to the floor next week, gaining support from both anti-drilling liberals and pro-production centrists.
Even though the final language of the bill hasn’t been written, and state governments have been cut out of the royalties from drilling, Democrats from both ends of the spectrum are saying they think they can vote for it.
“People want to support it,” said Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), who has spent much of her congressional career fighting drilling off the California coast. She said she is leaning toward supporting it, “but I’m getting a lot of pushback from my district.”
She said she expects centrists to vote for it as well. “They got a lot in this bill. We gave a lot.”
As House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) cranked up the whipping process on the plan Thursday, it got a thumbs-up from Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), the Democratic half of a bipartisan team that drafted a drilling bill, Blue Dog leader Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and several key freshman Democrats.
Pelosi aides said they also believe they’ve put enough drilling in the bill that centrist Republicans, particularly ones facing tough reelection contests in November, will vote for it.
“We think we’ve brought something together that has bipartisan support. It’s a compromise,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.
Republican leaders said they remained suspicious, given Pelosi’s previous staunch opposition to drilling. But they say they don’t know how many of their members they’ll be able to keep.
“If it’s moving us down the field, I’m probably going to vote for it. I’ve voted for all the incremental steps. If it’s a complete charade, that would cause me to vote against it,” said Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.), who has been targeted by Democrats for the past several elections and faces a tough contest this year.
But Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) criticized the approach taken by Pelosi, which he said amounted to shutting the minority out of the process. And he hinted that he and other GOP leaders will attempt to vilify the bill as purely partisan.
“We’ll see what she has,” Blunt said. “But you seldom get a compromise when you don’t talk to a single member of the other side.”
One way that Pelosi is selling the bill is by stressing that the debate is no longer about drilling versus not drilling. President Bush rescinded the executive order banning offshore drilling, and Pelosi said he wouldn’t sign a bill to extend the statutory moratorium that ends Sept. 30.
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