Poison Pill Provision Taints Democrats "Energy" Bill

This is what the Democrats want you think: they're opening up offshore oil drilling up and down the coast, and giving the states the right to refuse to allow drilling.

This is what you really get: because the law as written prohibits the states from obtaining royalties (tax revenue) from leases within their territorial waters, states are even less likely to allow the offshore drilling.

So, the reality is that the Democrats attempt to get the issue off the table because it's been killing them in the polls without actually allowing offshore drilling.

What state is going to allow offshore drilling when they can't get a cut of the pie? None, especially in the current economic climate. I've argued that the possibility of tax revenues would actually lead states to approving offshore oil drilling particularly because of the current economic climate and the need to diversify revenue sources.

That doesn't even begin to deal with states like New Jersey where the political leadership is strongly opposed to any offshore drilling, including for natural gas, despite the discovery of significant deposits offshore decades ago. Heck, New Jersey's political leaders haven't exactly gone out of their way to move forward with offshore wind power generating facilities despite Gov. Corzine's pledge to wean New Jersey from fossil fuels.

Michelle Malkin has much more.