House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may be ready to allow a vote on offshore drilling, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to make it easy on the Republicans who’ve been goading her for weeks on energy.

As she announced her willingness to hold a drilling vote Monday night, she stressed that it would have to be part of a larger energy package. And the contents of that package might include some items that would be tough for Republicans and the energy industry to swallow, like a renewable portfolio standard and the Democrats’ signature “use it or lose it” legislation.

“This is going to be one of those situations where people are saying, ‘I don’t like that, but I do like this,’ ” Altmire said. “That’s how you do good legislation.”

Democratic leaders are expected to begin discussing the shape of the package in a conference call Wednesday.

Republicans, who have staged a sit-in of sorts on the House floor for more than a week in order to demand an immediate drilling vote, greeted Pelosi’s gesture with deep skepticism.

“If Speaker Pelosi is truly sincere about having a vote on deep-ocean oil and gas drilling to help bring down fuel costs, she should use her power as Speaker to call Congress back into session immediately and schedule a vote on the American Energy Act,” Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement released Tuesday morning.

Both Boehner and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said the protest on the floor will continue.
Republicans are demanding a vote on the entire Republican energy plan, which includes drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

“We are asking that she bring our American Energy Act up for a vote,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who on Tuesday morning led nine Republicans to the House floor for their 10th day of protests. “If she brings it up under regular order, then amendments will be allowed and we’ll have that debated. What we want is a chance to have that debate and have a vote.”

Pelosi intentionally timed her reversal on CNN’s “Larry King Live” to fall well before the political intensity of the party conventions and into a news cycle dominated by the Olympics.