As you are no doubt aware, President Bush last month lifted the White House (that is, presidential) ban on new oil and gas drilling off America’s coastlines. The ban was imposed by his father in 1990. It should be noted, but often was not in the news, that this ban is “presidential” only and does nothing to impact the Congressional ban on new offshore drilling in the United States. Indeed, after lifting the ban, Bush pressured Congress to take similar action on its own ban. So, lifting the ban makes interesting news and counts as another grenade hurled into the presidential campaign by the Republicans but it does little else.

Hurling grenades into the political fray is quite common in the run up to the elections on November 4th. All the candidates, their supporters, the pundits and a good deal of the citizenry are well armed and not at all averse to lobbing an explosive whenever it is perceived that it might make an impact. As you might suppose, a number of them have been hoisted on their own petards. Wounded perhaps, they remain unrepentant and continue lob.

From this vantage point, it is difficult to determine who might be winning, what exactly they are fighting for and how they differ in any substantive sense. The primary issue, of course, is energy security for the United States. Loosely translated, that means sufficient energy resources to reduce prices of gasoline, natural gas, and electricity to levels more acceptable to the American public. Both Obama and McCain count it the most crucial issue of the election. And both candidates’ proposed solutions to the problem fall short. McCain supports the lifting of drilling bans offshore in the United States. Obama says that is too little, too late, “noting “McCain and Bush support a drilling plan that won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years. McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil.” Obama argues that conservation and alternative energy will carry the day but with little in the way of detail or substantiation. Both decry as tyrants those oil-producing countries not in favor with the United States. Both blabber about a national energy policy, something the nation has never managed. The whole thing puts me in mind of a line Mr. Mark Twain penned in his superb short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Said the primary character, when inspecting a frog before a frog race, “Well, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

The fact of the matter is that the Presidential election matters less than the Congressional elections. If the furor raised by campaign rhetoric, especially over energy, carries over to the first sessions of the next Congress — and it surely will if prices remain high — expect action. Both houses now look set to be controlled by the Democrats. In the unlikely event that this is not true, a Republican led House of Representatives, or Senate, would exist by a fractional margin and the beatings that the Republicans have taken over energy would likely lead some members to act in atypical fashion. One issue that will come up almost immediately will be the call for a windfall profits tax on the oil companies. It is unlikely that this bill would fail, even with one Republican controlled chamber and a Republican president. That is simply because the bill would be hailed as a revenue initiative that could be supported by some Republicans while, at the same time, serving as a method to punish the big, bad oil companies, a statement the Democrats desperately want to make. With a Democratic House and Senate, and a Democratic president, the bill is a slam dunk.

By the same token, lifting the Congressional ban on new offshore drilling is probably a good bet, regardless of the make up of Congress and the political orientation of the next president . . . if energy prices remain high. Passage of a bill lifting the moratorium could, and would, be played as each party doing every thing possible to moderate high energy prices. Even Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid, has noted that he is open to a compromise that would encourage more US oil and gas production. If oil and gas prices rise substantially, this is a slam dunk also.

And so the story goes. It is often said that politics makes strange bedfellows. Nowhere is that more true than in a US presidential election year.