In 2003, Oceana, an environmentalist group associated with actor Ted Danson, gave her an award at a star-studded Hollywood dinner. "Clinton," said a release about the award, "joined California Sens. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer to strike provisions in the Energy Bill that would have undermined current protections against new offshore drilling along California and other coastal states."
Between last year's and this year's hurricane seasons, Mrs. Clinton again voted against drilling in ANWR and against the energy bill -- even though it did not open ANWR or any new offshore areas to drilling. She also declared her opposition to a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound that would help New Yorkers import the fuel they need to heat their homes -- fuel that Mrs. Clinton opposes letting them drill in Finger Lakes National Forest.
In a July speech to the Democratic Leadership Council, she described her government-funded "American dream" for the year 2020. "Public and private investment in energy research and development has made America the world leader in clean, efficient energy use," she said, envisioning her Utopia. "Cars and trucks are powered by advanced hybrid engines, bio-fuels, fuel cells and clean diesel engines. Windmills and other renewable energy sources are generating 20 percent of our electricity." But she said nothing about allowing private enterprise to develop new domestic sources of oil and gas.
Then Katrina hit -- and the gas-pump populist was back.
"I want to go after the oil companies and the oil speculators and the manipulators of the money, because they're the ones who I think are really behind this," she said last week, calling for a Federal Trade Commission investigation of gas prices. "I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I'm tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies."
Truth is, whether she is seeking to curtail the oil supply as the great environmentalist or curtail oil prices as a gas-pump populist, Mrs. Clinton would put us all at the mercy of a bigger, more controlling government. No hurricane can be expected to change her dream of that.