Senate campaign spin obscures facts

The dueling press releases flooding e-mail boxes seemed to describe parallel worlds, rather than the same piece of legislation.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon’s office called the congressman’s recent vote a bid to lift the Obama administration’s six-month deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter’s office called it a vote to keep the moratorium in place.

Wait, huh?

It doesn’t seem as though it should be that difficult to know whether a vote is for or against something, but the near daily barrage of spin on the matter shows how difficult it has become to get real information on just about anything during campaign season – or with the partisan divides of Congress.

Melancon is challenging Vitter in this fall’s Senate race. The moratorium is a hot-button issue in Louisiana, where thousands of jobs are at stake and nearly every major politician, Republican or Democrat, is campaigning against it.

The moratorium shut down drilling at 33 wells in the wake of the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

Even though Vitter and Melancon ostensibly agree on the matter and say they oppose the drilling ban, the moratorium is becoming a strange point of contention in the Senate race.

As is usually the case in the politically tricky world of lawmaking, the spin broad-brushes a topic and leaves out the nuance of actual legislation. The truth gets lost somewhere in the muddle, and the voter seeking basic information on a candidate’s positions is out of luck.

The argument centers on a provision sponsored by Melancon that was added to a House-passed bill regulating offshore drilling, and it’s really not as simple as either Melancon’s or Vitter’s camp would want people to believe.

Rather than lifting the moratorium outright, as Melancon’s supporters suggest, the language would modify it. However, the provision wouldn’t just keep the current moratorium, as Vitter’s supporters and other Republicans suggest.

Instead of a blanket ban on new permits, drilling could be approved on a rig-by-rig basis if new safety requirements decided by the U.S. Interior Department are met. That decision would be in the hands of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who imposed the moratorium.

The Melancon provision also would declare that the secretary has the ability to suspend offshore drilling permitting and operations if there is deemed to be a health or safety threat.

Melancon says his amendment would do away with an improper broad moratorium that punishes everyone for the actions of “one reckless company,” while providing safety standards to protect rig workers and the environment.

He called it “a pragmatic middle ground to preserve jobs and keep the economy going without shutting down the economy in the form of a moratorium, but not allowing for just ‘drill, baby, drill’ with no concerns for safety or human life or the environment.”

Vitter – and the other Republican members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation – say the caveats would negate the provision’s impact and effectively keep the moratorium in place, leaving all decisions to the secretary.

They say it wouldn’t put pressure on Salazar to allow the resumption of deepwater drilling and would codify the secretary’s ability to enact a moratorium in law, even as a lawsuit challenges the drilling ban.

They are joined by Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, who said Melancon’s amendment “puts it exactly as it is today. His amendment did absolutely nothing. Salazar can do exactly what he wants to do.”

Vitter called Melancon’s provision a “sham amendment.” He pointed out that longtime drilling opponents supported it, an indication, he said, that it does nothing to change what’s already in place.

That’s an oversimplification of the matter, as is Melancon’s claim to lift the moratorium. But both Vitter and Melancon are playing politics, and the nuances of policymaking are too complex to fit in a press release or campaign ad.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Melinda Deslatte covers state politics for The Associated Press.