First the tax cut, then education, then the most comprehensive energy reform since the Reagan era. That was the plan. Then came the defection of GOP Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont. At once, the Senate leadership flipped - from the top right down through committee clerks, who swapped majority and minority titles. Instead of energy, the new Democratic leadership now will take up legislation on a patients' bill of rights.
Energy moves off the fast track.
And a more protracted process of hearings and consensus building begins. The Republican plan focused on finding ways to increase energy production, including oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and increasing the supply of nuclear power. To make their point, committee staff had even developed posters of grizzlies walking alongside pipelines, caribou wandering near drilling rigs, and fur-clad children living on the ANWR site. But the new Democratic leadership has already said that the proposal to drill in ANWR is dead on arrival. The issue is sufficiently complicated and important that we ought to take the time to do it as carefully as we can.