Forget voting to lift a ban on offshore drilling; House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t having any of it. In fact, she won’t even let an offshore drilling debate hit the House floor. When asked why she was so adamantly opposed to offshore drilling she responded,

“What the president would like to do is to have validation for his failed policy.”

Is there any justification as to why it shouldn’t be debated? Currently 85% of the outer continental shelf is off-limits, and it holds an abundant amount of resources that would pose little environmental risk.

The public is shifting its support for lifting bans for drilling; 73% support drilling while only 27% oppose. Furthermore, high gas and energy prices are causing House Democrats to switch their positions. Vice President of government relations here at The Heritage Foundation Mike Franc wrote that

“Recently, freshman Rep. Steve Kagen (D., Wisc.), who previously voted the environmental line, got religion. “Drill for new oil across America,” he wrote in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. On the Republican side, Maryland conservative Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who has also opposed drilling, recently co-sponsored a plan to open up the vast oil and gas resources under the Alaskan Coastal Plain for exploration and development.”

My other colleague, former Congressman Ernest Istook, refers to Nancy Pelosi as the new George Wallace after she called increasing supply by drilling offshore a hoax. Yet, supply side solutions are exactly what this country needs to ensure energy is affordable in the long-term. The Washington Post editorial asks an important question:

If drilling opponents really have the better of this argument, why are they so worried about letting it come to a vote?”