Dems agree to offshore drilling; GOP backs financial-bailout plan

Both parties have done things to anger supporters.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In a dazzlingly short span of days, Democrats and Republicans each have caved on a core issue.

Bowing to pressure by Republicans, Democratic congressional leaders agreed this week to let the 26-year-old congressional ban on offshore oil- and natural-gas drilling expire Tuesday, when the federal fiscal year ends.

The move has angered environmentalists, a key constituency for Democrats.

“The environmental community is united in its opposition to drilling,” said Anna Aurilio, who heads the Washington office of Environment America, which represents conservation groups in 26 states. “There is no need to open our coasts to drilling.”

At the same time, President Bush, Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Republican congressional leaders are pushing their party peers to pass a massive financial-services bailout that would dwarf any government program since the New Deal.

That prospect is infuriating fiscal conservatives and small-government activists who underpin the Republican Party.

“This may be your last chance to protect taxpayers and our economy from what could be the greatest fiscal policy fiasco in our nation’s history,” Pete Sepp, a policy analyst with the National Taxpayers Union, a Washington group that tracks federal spending, wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

With elections less than six weeks away, is this any way for senators and representatives to treat their parties’ most fervent loyalists?

Political analysts say lawmakers are being buffeted by events largely beyond their control.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Andrew Busch, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.

“Democrats are getting pushed hard on drilling because people really don’t like paying $4 a gallon for gasoline,” Busch said. “And Republicans are getting pushed hard because however much they may dislike this bailout, it’s not clear that there’s any alternative other than letting the financial system spin into further disaster.”

Republican fiscal conservatives in the House and Senate have tried to stop or at least rein in the $700 billion rescue package.

“This massive bailout is not a solution,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky. “It is financial socialism, and it’s un-American.”

But aides to some of the fiscal hawks who oppose the bailout concede that it likely will pass in some form, though with restrictions added by lawmakers such as increased congressional oversight and compensation limits for the executives of firms helped by the program.

Momentum to approve at least the outline of a deal gained speed after Bush addressed the nation Wednesday evening and joined an extraordinary meeting Thursday afternoon of congressional leaders from both parties and their presidential candidates.

McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, stopped campaigning and returned to Washington to attend the political summit.