The above compiled arguments summarize it nicely:
Seeking this "compromise" in order to get renewable credits renewed is like negotiating with kidnappers.

You can't compromise with (i.e. appease) pure aggressors anyway. They're just going to keep attacking and attacking until you fight back. You can only fight and fight until one of you is destroyed.

As we knew from the start, any "compromise" won't benefit renewables so much as it will the Orwellian "alternatives" like CTL, nukes, "clean" coal etc.

This proposed deal is indeed a pander just as stupid and short-sighted as the gas tax holiday, just as likely to benefit consumers (i.e., zero), only dragged out over decades, so those pushing it will never be on the hook when it definitively fails.

As for this:
A report released Monday by the Center for American Progress Action Fund found that in the 100 days after previous releases from the SPR, the average family saved a significant amount of money on gasoline -- $65 following a 1991 release shortly before Desert Storm, and $125 following a release prompted by Hurricane Katrina (adjusted to 2008 dollars).

There's a big difference between releasing part of the Reserve, intending to replace it later, to meet an acute shortage, as opposed to commencing the terminal liquidation of the Reserve to maybe temporarily dampen the price effects of what will now be a chronic and ever-increasing shortage.

Any relief this affords will be minimal and short-lived. This really is burning the furniture.

From Obama's speech yesterday:

We should invest in the technology that can help us recover more from existing oil fields, and speed up the process of recovering oil and gas resources in shale formations in Montana and North Dakota; Texas and Arkansas and in parts of the West and Central Gulf of Mexico.

Haven't there been some voices of caution raised about "speeding up the process" of recovering oils from the oil shales out west (I am assuming this is what Obama was referring to)?  

Positioning Obama on the left/right spectrum concerning energy, I'd say that he is lining up firmly on the center-right segment.  I am not surprised. There have been some signs of him being there from the get go.  The right will still say he is not compromising but I'd guess they would be content with the results of an Obama presidency.  The past will dictate much of our future actions for a long time to come.  And above all, Obama, as president, will have the responsibility of keeping the wheels on our heavily carbon based infrastructure.  

Obama has been making this point and McBush fell right into the trap.  Tuning and tire inflation will save more gas than the new offshore drilling will produce.  4 times as much to be precise.

So McBush has an ad ridiculing that call for efficiency from Obama.  But of course 'cain's own  prospective running mate and the bush administration and NASCAR all have called for engine tuining and tire inflation efficiency.

And now Corsi, the author of the swiftboat hit book on Kerry, has a swiftboat book out on Obama.  He is making the tv news rounds to tout the book and being treated like royalty by the talking heads.

This drilling switch is an Obama compromise.  Much like the compromise may have proposed.  Let big oil drill if they can prove they are exploiting leases they already have first and if they agree to better environmental oversight.

A similar compromise will have to be made with the nuclear power industry too.  It's real politics.  You give a bit, but the devil is in the details.  You hold the industries to the laws they claim to have been complying with under industry self (no) regulation for all these bush and clinton years.  

You re-regulate by actually enforcing environmental laws on the books and strengthening the lobbyist appointment weakened regulating agencies.

Yes Obama can.  Don't get fooled by McBush disinformation.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

We've experienced almost eight years of a President who wouldn't change his position (even when proven very, very wrong) and wouldn't compromise.

Do we want another blockhead in the White House or do we want someone who is a realist and can get the country moving forward again?

We've got a group of Republicans in Congress who have enough political power to stop bills.  We're going to have to give them some things that they want or get nothing done.  That's reality.

IMHO, give them off shore drilling.  It will be mostly blocked by individual states.  

No new off shore drilling will happen for many, many years by which time we may find the pressure to find new oil greatly diminished.  Give us an affordable electric car with usable range and the desire to do no harm to local tourist business will override the desire to drill.

BTW, we negotiate with hostage takers all the time.  

Obama's call for a million plugin hybrids and government support for automaker retooling to produce them.  That's a point Obama would get for our side by giving somewhat on other issues.

The legislative process is held hostage by rules that obstruct change, as well as lobbyist cash spread amongst the elected officials.

Maybe if Obama allows a few experimental (allegedly safer, cheaper, waste recyclng) nuclear reactors to be developed and tested over the next decade, he could get a moratorium on new nukes and an elimination of subsidies for big nuke.

How did FDR get things done during WW2?  Obama is facing a challenge now, in oil wars, climate change, and inflation/recession causing energy/ag policy; that could be just as critical as Lincoln and FDR faced.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

He changes with the wind. If it will get him more votes he sides with whatever position is more popular. He is the epitome of a politician.

Oh I think it is a masterful swipe to take the wind out of Mc-Lame's sails and neutralize any platform he may have. The race is surprisingly close in recent polls, given a huge block of independents, a vast third party that does include some disillusioned former Republicans. Sure, he has to race to the center, much as Mc-Lame has to pander to the old style Reagan conservatives.

But last I checked, a President can't unleash vast oil fields, create a million plus-in electric cars, or whatever is on your menu de jour. The US Congress has to provide enabling legislation and then the appropriations, right? He's not showing his hand about a possible veto, right?

True, by Executive Order, Presidents can open or close various tracts of land but Congress holds the trump cards.

By the way and speaking of the SPR, we need to stop a Bush project that would create a vast salt dome storage area for crude in Mississippi up the Pascagoula River. It is an environmental nightmare, the proposed Richton facility, which would be created by sucking 50 million gallons a day from the Pascagoula and flushing the brine into the pristine Mississippi Sound.  This could create a dead zone that could challenge the larger one to the west and south from the Mississippi River and its toxic brew.  

In fact, a sitting president could spend about two years just undoing the crap foisted on us by Boosh. Fark Boosh! Stop the madness and fund some real projects, OK?

Onward through the fog

A Sierra Club press release on Monday ignored the offshore-drilling issue entirely and simply heaped praise on Obama's energy platform (and scorn on John McCain's).

"The short-term problem is that Americans are really hurting on gas prices," said David Willett, press secretary for the Sierra Club. "It would just be really foolish of us to be completely ignorant of that fact. [Releasing oil from the reserve] would hopefully take some of the pressure off the folks who are feeling pressure, who don't want to be for drilling but they're not sure that they have a choice at this point because of public demand."

This is a great example of what's wrong with the mainstream enviro groups.  High gas prices are not at all an environmental problem, they've been a boon to the environment in that they've resulted in less driving and more public transit use.  While it would be "foolish of us to be completely ignorant of" the fact that people are paying a lot more for gas and don't like that reality, concluding that we must therefore promote further environmental destruction by more drilling of any kind is beyond foolish, it's completely idiotic.  Just as people in the San Francisco Bay Area who lived and worked on opposite sides of the Bay  rearranged their lives to live and work on the same side when the Bay Bridge was closed for six weeks after the 1989 earthquake, people should be encouraged to change their lifestyles to drive a lot less.  This would not only be good for the Earth, it would secondarily reduce their expenses.