Check out this must-read from Charles Krauthammer:

There are a dizzying number of economic and national security arguments for drilling at home: a $700 billion oil balance-of-payment deficit; a gas tax (equivalent) levied on the paychecks of American workers and poured into the treasuries of enemy and terror-supporting regimes; growing dependence on unstable states of the Persian Gulf and Caspian basin.

Pelosi and the Democrats stand athwart shouting: We don’t care. We come to save the planet!

They seem blissfully unaware that the argument for their drill-there-not-here policy collapses on its own environmental terms.

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of the current debate over oil and domestic drilling is just how bold critics of the Speaker have become — they must smell blood (or oil).

Great work from the Examiner’s Nate Beeler

First, let’s state that the science on global warming isn’t in — despite the best attempts of Al Gore’s cronies to silence debate (he should have built in a kill switch for opposition when he built the Internet). At the same time, let’s also acknowledge that the climate changes — it’s sort of the essence of weather. So even if you assumed the climate trajectory was getting warmer, it’s not necessarily that big a deal. Now Popular Science offers three new pieces of evidence that climate change isn’t the apocalypse activists foresee. Check it out. The take from Glenn Renolds: “I dunno. But maybe we should figure this out before we turn our economy upside down?” Indeed.

Ahh, how politicians take different tacks on the issue of a potentially warming climate. Here we take a quick look at a Tale of Two Speakers.

First, NewsBusters points to a glowing profile of current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by the Financial Times, a paper routinely caught pumping global warming hype. Relevant passages include the description of Pelosi “steering the Democrats’ response to the energy crisis without alienating environmentalists or the struggling middle class” and achieving her (ostensible) success in a noteworthy fashion:

She achieved that, says one senior Republican lobbyist, by taking cues from the former Republican speaker Newt Gingrich: centralising power in her office and, when necessary, side-stepping powerful committee chairmen by creating ad hoc committees to tackle sensitive issues such as global warming.

Hmm. We’re pretty sure she didn’t take her energy policy stance from Gingrich. He’s had quite the remarkable revival of his public profile as he has led the mass movement to Drill Here, Drill Now through his American Solutions group. He has, depending on one’s perspective, either led the reversal of American public opinion in favor of domestic drilling or rode the wave, or something in between. His resurgence has earned him a fascinating profile by Joel Connelly, who describes how “Gingrich has taken a contentious plague-on-both-your-parties stand in the debate over how to put the brakes on global warming.”

If you’re looking for the key difference between Gingrich’s popular position, and that of the current Speaker who oversees a Congress with an approval rating in the single digits, consider the former Speaker’s proposed energy solutions:

In his view, fleshed out in his book Contract with the Earth, “incentive-oriented, market-based” programs should be put on the table as an alternative to “the ideological commitment to bigger government.”

Still, there’s some room to quibble, we suppose. While Gingrich supports nuclear and providing tax credits for building solar and wind power, those could theoretically disrupt the energy market — but certainly it’s nowhere as economically silly as a slush fund (cap-and-trade plan) for Congress. There’s also this quote from the man himself: “Remember, in World War II we did everything and everything at once … And we won.”

We didn’t like Al Gore likening his energy crusade to the Space Race, and we’re not sure we like it any more when Gingrich makes a comparison to World War II. But given which Speaker speaks of good energy policy, it’s not hard to vocally support Gingrich in this one.

UPDATE (Tuesday, 10:25 am): Pelosi says “I’m trying to save the planet” … oh, well then that changes everything …

• Will hindsight be 2020? Arizona and six other states might have to cut greenhouse gases by 15% in just 12 years
• Oh, San Fran: No surprise, writers from the San Francisco Chronicle say economic downturns are greeeeeat for the environment because they force us to use less energy — another winning moment for the Left Coast
• NewsBusters recap: Penn and Teller say Al Gore is an EPA — ‘Egregiously Pushy A**hole’ (we highly recommend the episode for those not offended by salty language)
• Shopfloor.org sums up the Washington Post’s Sunday front-page package on energy: In a New Environment, More Energy Becomes Attractive
• Climate Audit has a “particularly amusing defence of scientists failing to maintain proper records” … meanwhile, Climate Skeptic says “Some Day Climate May Be A Big-Boy Science” (we’re not holding our breath)
• Michael Barone on Enviro Lunacy: “We have banned oil drilling on a very small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that is godforsaken tundra (I have been to the North Slope oil fields, similar terrain — I know) for fear of disturbing a herd of caribou — a species of hoofed animals that is in no way endangered or scarce.”
• Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe says it’s “time to end” the “Democratic Party’s obstruction” on energy
• Proving once again the global warming movement is part and parcel of a strange anti-consumer religion, an Australian firm is blaming TV ads for extra greenhouse emissions
• A Change of California’s Climate: The governor vetoes a bill mandating climate-change brainwashing curriculum
• So much for Kyoto: “Europe’s coal consumption is rising, not falling, and the Continent won’t come close to meeting the Kyoto targets for carbon reduction. Australia is selling coal to all comers.”
• Since bad economic policy is sure to follow bad climate policy, Australian unions want carbon tariff to protect jobs
• Where there’s fire there’s cooling?: A new study finds that wildfires–which some scientists believe may be intensified by global warming–may actually cool the warming in the Arctic
• Check out Americans for Prosperity’s scorecard on energy

So enjoy this from the National Association of Manufacturers and promise to come back when we’re feeling more lively.

Gotta hand it to those climate-change activists, they really know how to botch timing. As what seems like the perfect storm gathers — Al Gore’s hubris and T Boone’s wind-energy gold rush — there’s this news from Alaska: it might be the coldest summer ever in Anchorage. Whoops!

Knowing what we do today, those in Congress against drilling are derelict in their duty and don’t deserve to keep jobs in November.

– So writes Investors Business Daily, which points to 90 billion barrels of oil within our own country’s ability to drill

That’s the issue taken up by Steve Milloy, who’s none too pleased with the oil tycoon’s latest venture into forcing America’s heartland to become a wind farm:

Pickens’ involvement in the alleged swiftboating of John Kerry seems to have been forgiven and forgotten by the paper. But the Times went absolutely over-the-top when it observed that the billionaire Pickens wasn’t in it for the money because “he doesn’t really need it.”

It’s too bad we can’t generate electricity from such hilarity, half-truths and hypocrisy. Pickens and his new friends could power us — as Buzz Lightyear might say — to infinity and beyond.

That’s probably harsher than we would go with here. But it is indicative of the frustration and sense of betrayal many defenders of commonsense energy policy feel now that one of their leading champions seems to have ditched them for a quick (ten billion) buck(s).