THE GULF OIL SPILL HAS ITS CONSEQUENCES  – AT 8:47 P.M. ET:  Radical environmentalists should give an award to BP for making their job so easy.  President Obama, already moving to strengthen his political base, throws the enviros a bone:

WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Thursday that he is extending the moratorium on permits to drill new deepwater wells for six more months, as the head of the agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned under pressure...

...Mr. Obama’s order is intended to halt further permits for new wells for six months, delay planned exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the coast of Alaska, cancel an August lease sale in the western Gulf and cancel a lease sale off the coast of Virginia, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.

The Virginia lease sale had drawn environmental concerns and objections from the Defense Department. The Alaska project will be delayed for six months while a new presidential commission studies how to regulate offshore drilling.

COMMENT:  This was inevitable, given the disaster in the Gulf.  But Americans are going to start feeling it at the pump.  Prices are expected to rise dramatically, and five-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, the pipe dream of well-heeled environmentalists who don't feel the pain themselves but think everyone else should, is not out of the question.

Meanwhile, a Zogby interactive poll revealed that only 16% of Americans approve of Mr. Obama's handling of the oil spill.  I question the accuracy of Zogby's polls, but, even given a wide margin of error, the president is getting no applause from the nation for his slow, indifferent response to the flowing oil.

We haven't seen the last of this story, even if BP caps the well.  The repercussions, political and economic, will last for years.

May 27, 2010