Amid Capitol's quiet, GOP drums drilling
They walk through the Capitol in cutoffs and flip-flops, but with quiet awe, gawking at the huge paintings, posing alongside the marbled statesmen, straining their necks as they look skyward to study the dome from inside the rotunda.
The thousands of tourists who visit every August typically find the place more like a mausoleum than a working seat of government. With Congress in recess, the chambers are shut, the cavernous corridors empty of lobbyists and reporters.
This year, with gasoline prices at record highs, fewer tourists seem to be making the trip. But they're getting a civics lesson and a bit of political theater as part of their pilgrimage.
A band of Republicans has opened the House chamber every weekday since the end of July for one- or two-hour "shadow sessions," designed to dramatize their call for action to boost the nation's energy supplies and lower prices. All three of Hampton Roads' GOP representatives, Thelma Drake of Norfolk, Randy Forbes of Chesapeake and Rob Wittman of West-moreland County, have taken part.
Drake and her colleagues have used the gatherings, which a House historian said appear to be unprecedented, to pound home familiar themes from the energy debate.
Oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the Atlantic's outer continental shelf could reduce U.S. dependence on oil-producing nations in the Middle East, the Republicans contend, if only the Democratic-controlled Congress would remove barriers to drilling.
The royalties that new drilling would generate also would provide a multibillion-dollar boost to the development of alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power, and to energy conservation, Drake said during Friday's session. That means more jobs for Americans even if gas prices don't drop, she says.
Because the House is in recess, the Republicans have been able to bring visitors onto the floor for the sessions. Families drift in and out, sitting in the cushioned benches normally reserved for members and straining to hear speeches delivered without the aid of a microphone.
With Democrats absent, the discussion is mostly one-sided.
Democratic talking points - such as Newport News Rep. Bobby Scott's assertion at a mid-August forum that there's not enough oil off the Atlantic Coast to significantly increase world supplies - go unmentioned.
Still, there is some debate.
On Friday, one man wondered why Republicans hadn't made offshore drilling happen during the six years they controlled both Congress and the White House.
The Senate was the problem there, said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., because its rules let a determined minority block most legislation. He didn't add that until recently, a substantial number of Republican senators, including presidential candidate John McCain, supported a moratorium on most offshore drilling.
Drake said that the Republican effort already is paying off, pointing to statements last week in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested she might permit a floor vote on an energy bill that includes drilling provisions.