A Priceless Editorial

Pelosi’s Price

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

Congress: Americans expect and need a Speaker of the House who offers common-sense leadership to direct bipartisan legislative action. Nancy Pelosi is not up to that task, and our nation is the loser.

It’s bad enough that Rep. Pelosi refuses to embrace reality, evaluate facts and oversee meaningful debate. But the hissy fits she throws against President Bush and the Republican minority are worse yet. This is a sad situation.

Pelosi’s reaction to Bush’s lifting of the ban on offshore drilling is a perfect example. She called the action a giveaway of “more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they’ve already leased.”

The key phrase is “public” resources — not Democratic resources or Pelosi’s resources — and polls clearly show Americans are behind coastal drilling. The speaker knows that.

Her demonizing of Big Oil doesn’t make sense, either. The companies want to get oil out of the ground. Their exploratory technology is very effective, and they’re drilling extensively. But not all lease properties have oil that’s readily recoverable.

Pelosi says the president’s action is a “gift of more profits for the oil companies.” Does she prefer that foreign, and often hostile, nations make the profits? Well, they are. She knows that, too.

“The Bush plan is a hoax,” Pelosi charges, ignoring the fact that we know large reserves are located off our shores, in Western oil-shale deposits and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Bush says let’s get it as quickly as possible, drilling responsibly off our shores, in the West’s oil shale formations and on 2,000 acres of the 19 million acres in ANWR. Prudhoe Bay, North America’s largest oil field, has proved we can do so and not hurt the environment. It can be done, and America needs it. Pelosi also knows that.

Pelosi wonders that if congressional action is so important, “why didn’t the Republicans pass it when they were in control?” She seems to doubt the need for any debate on drilling. This is scary.

The two parties have bumped heads on this issue since the Carter years. Surely the speaker remembers 1995, when she voted against a GOP bill to drill in ANWR. It passed both the House and Senate only to be vetoed by President Clinton. She knows that as well.

Last weekend, Pelosi responded to Bush’s criticism of Congress by calling him “a total failure.” It was a telling interview, with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer pressing her on topics including offshore drilling. Each time she blamed everybody but Congress.

The real failure is Pelosi’s refusal to address reality and lead. The nation knows that.