Today’s Greenwire (subscription required) reports that the House is expected to vote as soon as tomorrow on Democratic legislation that would “allow drilling more than 100 miles from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and as close to 50 miles from the shore if coastal states agree to it.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is spearheading this legislation — an obvious sign that the Green Left’s longstanding opposition to drilling has become a political liability for Democrats in this election cycle.

However, although Pelosi appears to be bowing to political and economic reality, her proposed “compromise” is a cynical ploy that no self-respecting supply-sider will touch with a 2,000-foot oil rig.

Oil companies in Alaska are paying more money in taxes than ever before. The state's oil and gas tax revenues for its just-ended fiscal 2007 topped $10 billion. That's twice as much as fiscal 2006 and four times more than 2004.

Some supporters of Barack Obama see that money coming in and say that John McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, must have done what Sen. Obama wants to do -- sock those companies with a big fat windfall profit tax. This is a deeply misleading reading of her 2007 tax reform.

A few years ago, Alaska had a big problem. Despite high oil prices, the state's fiscal future was in peril because the state relies on only three aging oilfields for 80% of its oil and gas tax revenue.

In 2006, then Gov. Frank Murkowski, a Republican, proposed changing the state's tax on oil from a gross-revenue to a net-revenue basis. Instead of creaming 10% off the top -- which was how the mature oil fields were taxed -- Mr. Murkowski pushed to tax oil companies on their profits only, at a rate of 22.5%. The change in tax regime was meant to encourage investment in and development of new fields.

The Opposition Leader is damned for heresy:

BRENDAN Nelson was yesterday accused of being “blissfully immune” to the effects of climate change after he said the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin was not linked to global warming.

The Opposition Leader told the ABC on Monday night: “What’s happening at the moment in the Murray-Darling Basin is a consequence of two things: mismanagement of the entire system for almost 100 years and also the worst drought in 100 years. And it is quite wrong for people to suggest that what we’re seeing at the moment is a consequence of climate change.”

A scientific panel on Thursday released detailed findings of an April review that classified the bear population as a "special concern," but not endangered or threatened with extinction.

The government has created a national round table to consult with a variety of groups, including residents of the Arctic, on how best to protect the bears, Environment Minister John Baird said.

"Protecting the polar bears is something we are committed to, but we going to base it on science and with input and collaboration with Inuit and northern people," Baird told reporters in Inuvik, Northwest Territories.