Beltway Snark

Nice try guys, now let’s see you put a real bill out for a vote.

While lifting a 25-year federal ban on most offshore oil and natural gas drilling, the legislation would block Virginia and other coastal states from sharing in a $2.6 trillion bonanza of tax revenue expected to flow from offshore fields. A Senate bill still in the works would give states part of the money.

Unless states stand to profit from offshore development, they almost surely would exercise their right under the bill to block any drilling within 100 miles of their shores, critics of the House initiative charged.

“With no financial incentive, no state will choose to ‘opt in,’ ” House Republican leader John A. Boehner of Ohio told reporters, “and this bill will result in little or no new American energy production.”

Rep. Thelma Drake, a Norfolk Republican who has taken a prominent role among pro-drilling forces, was even more critical.

The new bill “appears to be little more than a political ploy,” Drake charged in a prepared statement. Democrats intend to “tell the American people that they voted to go after more American energy while winking to the environmentalists to say that this increased production will never happen,” she said.

Really, do they think people are that dumb?

UPDATE - And they manage to get their do-nothing bill passed. The saving grace is that Bush has said he’d veto the bill if it makes it to his desk.