Economist Daniel Gross has a great column in Newsweek about why offshore drilling has become so popular, despite the fact that it’s about as likely to drop gas prices and decrease foreign oil dependence as a group prayer session. His theories on drilling’s exponential rise—particularly compared to the gas tax’s crash and burn—include the following:

• Vast right-wing conspiracy: The gas-tax holiday was derided by the economic-policy wing of the Republican Party. By contrast, the Republican noise machine—the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Washington think tanks, talk- radio blowhards, the dwindling core of Capitol Hill Republicans—has marched in impressive message lock step for drilling.

• Screw the foreigners: Call it national security, or call it chauvinism, but drilling for domestic oil sets up a zero-sum game. Every barrel of oil produced here is one we don’t have to buy from our long and growing list of enemies: Venezuela, Iran and Russia. By contrast, a gas-tax holiday just offers more opportunities to enrich Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

• Mytho-historical: Wildcatting for oil conjures up legendary fortunes (Rockefeller, Getty, Hughes) and feeds into romanticized notions of how the nation was built by pioneers who tapped into the natural bounty of this resource-rich land. Think John Wayne and “There Will Be Blood.” Gas-tax holidays conjure up images of accountants. Think David Schwimmer.

Valid theories all—though personally, we’re partial to this one:

• Freudian: The language and imagery surrounding the issue—drills penetrating the earth’s crust in search of gushers—tap into deep-seated subconscious desires. A gas-tax holiday? Not so much.

When in doubt, blame the phallus!

It sounds more and more like some offshore oil drilling is going to happen.

Congress can’t be like “mountain sheep, standing back and butting heads” over drilling, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today. Reid, on a conference call with T. Boone Pickens about their National Clean Energy Summit to be held Tuesday in Las Vegas, praised the recent Senate compromise that would allow some drilling as near as 50 miles from shore.

There are a number of well-known problems with offshore drilling: It probably won’t make any sizable dent in the oil market, the oil wouldn’t be available for the better part of a decade, and there’s already a shortage of oil rigs to do the drilling, plus any leaks or other environmental hazards that drilling could create. But a compromise on drilling could be necessary to get what Reid repeatedly praised today as the real key to promoting alternative energies technologies—tax credits. As we covered on Monday, the renewal of solar power tax credits is being held up in the Congress by the current drilling deadlock.

The question at hand is how far Congress will allow new drilling to go. “It’s not a black and white issue,” said Reid, who says he might be open to some drilling. Pickens, the billionaire oilman, has no such restraint. Though he has repeatedly said the U.S. can’t drill its way out of the energy crisis, Pickens says he supports new drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and any other available land—anything to reduce the amount of foreign oil imported into the U.S.

Reid and Pickens pledged to look at any and all possible energy sources at their Tuesday conference, which will feature former Pres. Clinton, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and several governors. “We’re going to talk about anything anyone wants to talk about,” Reid said, including nuclear power, solar, wind, natural gas, and what the government can do to encourage their development. After the talks, the organizers plan to submit their plan to both political parties’ fall conventions.

Hopefully, their plan for the country’s energy future will be seriously forward-looking—including major investments or tax credits for renewable energy and steps to move away from fossil fuels—especially if it comes at the cost of more oil drilling.

Image: iStockphoto

Offshore drilling has become a central issue in the campaign, despite the fact that it’s pretty assured that ripping up the Outer Continental Shelf won’t do jack to reduce oil prices, or decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Still, GOP members of the House of Representatives are clinging like static to the issue, to the point where they’ll forgo a perfectly good August vacation to stay in D.C. and recruit tourists to their cause. According to the Christian Science Monitor:

Nearly 90 GOP lawmakers, about 40 percent of the Republican caucus, have come back to Washington since the House voted to adjourn on Aug. 1 to protest Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to allow a vote to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling.

“The American people deserve more access to American oil, and Congress should be in session until we vote,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R) of Indiana, speaking to a chamber half-filled with tourists, escorted by GOP lawmakers to break off their tours of the Capitol and take a seat on the floor. He urged the tourists, many of whom seemed astonished to find themselves on the floor of the US House of Representatives, to “call to a Democratic member of Congress from your state” to demand a vote.

Funny how Pence neglected to mention that, even if a vote happens tomorrow and the moratorium is overturned, it would likely be 2013 at the earliest before our oil supply saw any increase. So you may as well enjoy that August holiday, ladies and gentlemen.

Image: iStockPhoto

Over at Better Planet, Ben Nugent discusses a recent poll showing that voters view the economy and high fuel prices as the biggest concerns this election season. In another AP-Yahoo News poll that’s been running since last November, 87 percent of the respondents now say gas prices are a “very important” issue to them personally, while “roughly the same amount as before the primaries — 62 percent—say the environment is at least a very important issue.”

All of which is good news, from an environmentalist perspective—high gas prices have thrust conservation and alternative energy into the everyday lives of most Americans, and have thus made it to the top of the candidates’ priority list. The less good news is the political lean that these priority lists are taking. While a few months ago, according to the AP, more voters were swinging towards energy conservation efforts, now the pendulum has swung back, with voters evenly divided between support for “drilling and other exploration” versus conservation.

Granted, “exploration” doesn’t have to mean the one big fat environmental mess that springs to mind: offshore drilling. The real exploration can (and must) come in the form of R&D for alternative energy and development of new technology. But drilling is the “logical conclusion” (if oil is expensive to import, let’s drill for our own!) and thus sticks in voters’ minds as a quick and easy fix (though really, it’s not much of a fix at all). As a result, fuel is starting to become a political minefield—as Obama’s recent announcement can attest—rather than a chance for the candidates to bring longterm energy policy ideas to the forefront of the debate.