McConnell settles for expediency on energy

[BridgeTheGap]

As President Obama prepared to address the nation about the Gulf oil blowout last week, some in his administration wanted him to use the occasion to push for an energy bill that would put a price on carbon, through a cap-and-trade system much like one that the House narrowly passed last year.

But the president did not do that, apparently heeding his political advisers, who were wary of binding him to an idea he has long favored but one that faces an uphill fight in the Senate and is already causing problems for Democrats in this year's elections -- including some in Kentucky.

That may have been evident in the political posturing of Kentucky's senior senator, Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, in the run-up to Obama's speech. Decrying cap-and-trade, he said Democrats "want to do something that has absolutely nothing to do with getting the leak stopped and getting the oil cleaned up."

McConnell even went so far as to accuse Democrats of "holding the Gulf hostage to a national energy tax," which was silly and false. The cap-and-trade debate will have no effect on the short-term fate of the Gulf Coast. But in suggesting that it might, McConnell subtly argues that Obama is mismanaging the situation, and diverts attention from the baggage that Republicans bring to the blowout. (It's far worse than a "spill," the unfortunately accepted nomenclature.)

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100620/COLUMNISTS12/6200329/1016/OPINION/Al+Cross+|+McConnell+settles+for+expediency+on+energy