Newt Gingrich joined his party to promote drilling yesterday, warning Democrats who won't hold a vote on drilling that Republicans could shut down government. Gingrich is practiced at this, having led his party to two government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 that were criticized by voters.
Drilling in protected areas will not bring immediate relief from oil shortages, nor is it the best environmental strategy. But wasn't Newt the environmental guy? So confusing. Not more than a year ago, when the Republicans decided that Democrats were gaining too much support with their environmental positions, Newt was one of the first ones to try to reshape the Republicans as green. Faced with growing movement to stem carbon emissions, Gingrich wrote for the AEI in "We Can Have Green Conservatism - And We Should":
"...if the debate becomes, "Al Gore cares about the earth, and we're against Al Gore, we end up in a defensive position where the average American could end up perceiving conservatives as always being negative about the environment."
He asserted that liberal environmentalism was bad policy, bested by green conservatism, that is, "Green Conservatism", capitalized of course. Republicans (and him) went way back being green he wrote:
"In my commitment to the environment, I was echoing the conviction of two well known Republican leaders. The first was President Theodore Roosevelt, who said that "the nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets, which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value." The other was then Gov. Ronald Reagan, who upon the occasion of the first Earth Day said that "[there is an] absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment."
First he slyly claimed Teddy Roosevelt as his own, then he defined the "Green Conservative":
"For green prosperity and green development, we have to have a strategy that makes the transition from the unimproved fossil fuels...to a new generation of clean energy that will: enable us, in national security terms, to be liberated from dependence on dangerous dictatorships; enable us, in economic terms, to be effective in worldwide competition; and enable us, in environmental terms, to provide for a much cleaner and healthier future."
He said "green" a lot, 23 times in a couple of pages. But that was then, April, 2007, and this is now.
So will all Republicans who denounced drilling changed their minds? The Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) don't support drilling as of August 7th, posting articles such as "Quickest Way to Cheaper Gas Prices Is Not More Drilling." Will they change their minds? Will the Daily Green, another "green" Republican blog?
