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More oil and gas in the Senate race

From the Gulf of Mexico to the Marcellus Shale, we’re having a hard time keeping up with all the oil and gas rhetoric leaking out of the Senate race.

It started last week, with Democrats hammering Republican Pat Toomey for still supporting off-shore drilling as Toomey tried to claim the middle ground. But the back-and-forth has continued almost every day. At first it seemed that Democratic party organizations were taking care of the Toomey criticism, but then Sestak’s campaign chimed in itself, with a spokesman saying that Toomey’s “defense of Big Oil is not surprising.”

“With this unprecedented disaster, you’d think Congressman Toomey would finally come down on the side of the people,” spokesman Jonathon Dworkin said last Thursday. “You’d be wrong. Congressman Toomey would like to appear common-sense, but it’s clear he’s still Wall Street’s Congressman.”

Less than two hour later, Toomey’s campaign said that Sestak is “to the left of many Democrats” on energy policy, citing comments in support of off-shore drilling by, among others, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Gov. Ed Rendell. “When it comes to the country’s energy policy, Congressman Sestak is siding with his MoveOn.org friends over the hardworking families of Pennsylvania,” Toomey spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said.  “Sestak’s ‘more government, less jobs’ agenda is so outside the mainstream, it is no surprise that so many other Democrats are embracing a more balanced approach to energy policy like Pat Toomey’s own views.”

By the weekend, we had moved to the Marcellus Shale wells in the Keystone State, in the wake of an Clearfield County accident last week. Sestak visited Dallas, Pa. and called for a “balanced approach,” which apparently involved continued drilling but with more safety regulations—and a moratorium until those regulations are in place. “Accidents like the one in Clearfield County last week and the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrate that energy development is not without its dangers,” Sestak said in a statement. “Marcellus Shale development can be done in a way that can create jobs and revenue for our communities, but we first must make certain that the health of our citizens and our natural resources are not second to energy company profits.”

But Rendell says no moratorium is needed, so Toomey’s campaign once again said Sestak is a lefty-liberal—”alone on the far left,” as they like to say.

“I am fully committed to making sure every safety precaution is taken, but Congressman Sestak is going to extreme lengths in calling for a moratorium on Marcellus Shale development that will result in the loss of tens of thousands of Pennsylvania jobs,” Toomey said Monday in the latest comments. “Joe might not have noticed that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is at an enormous 9 percent. Any accident is tragic and must be fully investigated, but that doesn’t mean we shut down the entire effort and kill tens of thousands of local jobs in the process. That’s like saying if there’s a tragic airplane crash, we stop all air travel. This is another example of Congressman Sestak’s approach of putting government over jobs.”

So that’s where we are.

All in all, it’s a lot of hot air from both sides. Plugging this debate could prove difficult.

Our friends at The Post-Gazette have a nice dissection of where these guys stand on the issues.

June 14, 2010 at 1:22 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey

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