The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s “The Platform” Blog today showcases Roy Blunt’s efforts to bring the Republican message to the paper’s editorial board.  Predictably, on the subject of energy, he is hard at work trying to reinforce the perception that only Republicans will stand up for our god-given right to cheap gas, and that the magic panacea is expanded domestic drilling, regardless of the potential environmental destruction. He was open about the political pay-off he and his cronies hope to reap from this issue:

He said that in mid-2006 it seemed that most Americans had “turned the switch off” in terms of listening to what Republicans had to say, but now the energy issue had caused them to “turn the switch back on.”

Blunt clearly expects that nobody will recollect the Republicans’ ongoing and reciprocal love-affair with oil industry money; he tries to present this Republican enthusiasm for giving it away to the oil-companies as the continuation of a principled stance:

…he noted that in the past, most of the GOP had consistently advocated expanded drilling, even when it wasn’t as popular a position as it is today.

Blunt’s rationales for drilling are predictable and predictably shallow.  For example, what is a little environmental degradation when everyone is doing it:

The rest of the world, Blunt said, is enthusiastically developing their domestic energy sources – from Scandinavia to Nigeria to Brazil – while the United States is alone in refusing to do the same.

My mother never bought the everybody-else-is-doing-it line when I was a kid, and we would be fools to buy it now on this important issue–particularly when Mr. Blunt might conceivably be charged with comparing apples and oranges in some of the examples he offers.  

While Blunt concedes that we would not see any result from this expanded drilling for 10 years, he notes that:

… the fact remains that we will still be using oil in 10 years – no matter how much progress is made with alternative energy – it makes sense to start ramping up domestic production now.

Easy to dismiss alternative energy, when you and  your friends are busy blocking real steps that might lead to energy independence, Mr. Blunt.

The main Republican arguments for expanded drilling are, however, beautifully refuted by a plethora of  Letters to the Editor in the Saturday edition of the Post-Dispatch. I was overwhelmed by the fact that so many people are rejecting the Republican energy flim-flam.  Out of ten letters dealing with the energy issue, seven were written to rebut just the type of arguments put forward by Blunt & Co. (Many of the letters were responses to Charles Krauthammer’s column of August 3 in which he trotted out all the same old Republican talking points–I guess the cadres have their marching orders and are dutifully snapping to it.)

And the letter writers got it all just right.  Several noted that drilling American oil does not insure that Americans will get to use that oil. Paul L. Hendrikson puts it masterfully:

… the term “dependence on foreign oil” has been bandied about in both presidential campaigns. Do we import foreign oil? Of course we do. But we – that is the oil companies pumping oil in U.S. territory – also are exporting oil to foreign countries. Oil from the North Slope of Alaska is going to Japan and other Asian countries. Any oil produced anywhere goes on “the market” and is available to the highest bidder.

…

Drilling the continental shelves may provide more oil for “the market,” but only if world consumption declines would that mean lower prices at the pump – and that won’t be in my lifetime.

Robert Messick points out the fact that the Republicans are attempting to deny reality; that Krauthammer and, by extension, Roy Blunt are:

.. living in the past. He wants things to go back to the good times before scientists were sounding the alarm on Capitol Hill and General Motors still was cranking out the “Big Boys.”

Joseph Caligur sums it all up:

Why do the oil companies hate us so much, and why are the Republicans in league with them?

According to “The Platform”:

Blunt also argued that the presidential candidate with the better energy policy will have a huge advantage in November.

If that is the case, then the Letters to Editor page of the  Post-Dispatch might lead one to hope that many Americans will really be able to see through the Republican hype and will demand thoughtful solutions that address not only our energy needs, but which reflect the fact that the energy crisis and the dire environmental situation we now face are inextricably interrelated.  As the New York Times observes in its Sunday editorial opinion:

Here is the underlying reality: A nation that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while possessing less than 3 percent of its reserves cannot drill its way to happiness at the pump, much less self-sufficiency. The only plausible strategy is to cut consumption while embarking on a serious program of alternative fuels and energy sources. This is a point the honest candidate should be making at every turn.

That goes for an honest Representative to the People’s House too, Mr. Blunt.

N.B.  I updated this posting today at 11:22 to add a missing link and fix a few stylistic points.

UPDATE II.  For a description of what sane energy planning can do, read Thomas Friedman’s description of the results of Denmarks response to the  1973 energy crisis.