postcards from marilyn 37

Carroll: Udall Faces Reality

Friday, August 15, 2008

Vincent Carroll
Rocky Mountain News

If you want to know why U.S. Rep. Mark Udall switched his stand this week on offshore drilling, direct your attention to a poll that appeared in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. When unaffiliated voters were asked whether they would be more or less likely to support someone who favored easing restrictions on offshore drilling, 60 percent answered "more likely" while only 28 percent went the other way (the issue apparently didn't matter to some).

Even Democrats tilted slightly in favor of easing restrictions.

Udall, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and a longtime foe of offshore drilling (and much other drilling besides), recognizes an albatross when he sees one clinging to his neck. So he tried to yank it off by reversing his position. We'll see if he succeeds.

Two years ago, when a Rocky editorial called Udall shortsighted for voting against a bill to ease the ban on offshore drilling for natural gas (oil wasn't even on the table in order to eliminate fearmongering about spills), Udall wrote to say that we had "oversimplified the question."

Drilling "may be justified with the right safeguards," he maintained, but "that has not been properly established."

One would have thought that the vast experience of extracting natural gas in the western Gulf of Mexico had established that safeguards could be successfully imposed elsewhere, but the congressman was very picky at the time.

More to the point, perhaps, gasoline wasn't $4 a gallon.
Click here to read the full story.