Remember that the more annoyingly obstructionist and anti-regulatory the GOP is in the House, the more we the GOP base love them for it (something that the Senate GOP’s already noted). Which makes this short video about your disinclination to settle drilling before the August break (courtesy of the NRCC, and said group seems to have gotten the hint on this topic, at least), kind of fun:

And (via Hot Air) running out the clock favors us:

Polls indicate voters trust Democrats over Republicans, by substantial margins, to do a better job on energy. The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 42% of respondents preferred Democrats for dealing with energy policy, versus 22% favoring Republicans.

The poll indicated that Democrats’ edge on the issue may be slipping; the July poll gave Democrats a 20-point advantage on the issue, versus a 28-point lead in a January poll by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News.

Polls of likely voters in four battleground states, conducted this month by Quinnipiac University in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and Washingtonpost.com, show voters in each state say energy policy is more important to them than the war in Iraq.
{Bolding mine.}

You’re also making the WaPo a bit nervous, or perhaps just exasperated:

WHY NOT have a vote on offshore drilling? There’s a serious debate to be had over whether Congress should lift the ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981. Unfortunately, you won’t be hearing it in the House of Representatives — certainly, you won’t find lawmakers voting on it — anytime soon.

Instead of dealing with the issue on the merits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a staunch opponent of offshore drilling, has simply decreed that she will not allow a drilling vote to take place on the House floor. Why not? “What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy,” she said yesterday when asked that very question. “What we’re saying is, ‘Exhaust other remedies, Mr. President.’ . . . It is the economic life of America’s families, and to suggest that drilling offshore is going to make a difference to them paycheck to paycheck now is a frivolous contention. The president has even admitted that. So what we’re saying is, ‘What can we do that is constructive?’ “

If there is an explanation buried in there about why that makes offshore drilling off-limits for a vote, we missed it.

Let me just note something here, Madam Speaker: you have twenty or so seats that were ours in 2006. Every single one of those seats is held by a freshman Representative who will have to go home in August and campaign. Do you really want to send them out there to explain to their constituents why gas prices have doubled under their watch? Because we’re planning to bring up the topic, in precisely the ways that you really, really don’t want us to. And there’s no reason whatsoever to assume that the above 20 point deficit can’t be shrunk. A lot.

So let’s dance.

Moe Lane

PS: By the way… yes, yes, the NRCC is often disappointing: it’s also what we’ve got. Here’s their donation page.