US president lifts executive ban on offshore drilling

tag: oil

Economic Times - Indian Newspapers in English Language from seven editions.

US president lifts executive ban on offshore drilling
15 Jul, 2008, 0625 hrs IST, AGENCIES

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling Monday and challenged Congress to do the same, a gambit to turn the enormous public frustration about gasoline prices into political leverage.

Democratic lawmakers rejected Bush's plan as a symbolic stunt. With gas prices topping $4.10 a gallon (euro1.08 a liter) nationally, Bush made his most assertive move to extend oil exploration, an energy priority of his presidency. By lifting the executive prohibition against coastal drilling, Bush rescinded a White House policy that his father, President George H.W. Bush, put in place in 1990.

The move will have no practical effect unless Congress acts, too. Both executive and legislative bans must be lifted before offshore exploration could happen.

Bush had urged Congress a month ago to go first, then reversed himself Monday. He said the country could no longer afford to wait.

``Democratic leaders can show that they have finally heard the frustrations of the American people by matching the action I've taken today, repealing the congressional ban, and passing legislation to facilitate responsible offshore exploration,'' Bush said in an event held in the White House's Rose Garden.

The president's direct link between record gas prices and offshore drilling glossed over a key point. Even if Congress agreed, the exploration for oil would take a decade or more to produce real results. It is not projected to reduce gas prices in the short term. Even the White House routinely emphasizes there is no quick fix.

Both presidential campaigns weighed in on the hot political topic.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called Bush's move ``a very important signal'' and prodded his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, to drop his opposition to offshore drilling.

``If offshore drilling would provide short-term relief at the pump or a long-term strategy for energy independence, it would be worthy of our consideration, regardless of the risks,'' Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. ``But most experts, even within the Bush administration, concede it would do neither.''

Other Democrats also were unmoved by the presidential action. ``The Bush plan is a hoax,'' responded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. ``It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence.''

None of that stopped the president from building his case around today's prices at the gasoline pump.

He said every extra dollar that families have to spend on gas is one they could be using to put food on their tables or to send children to school. The American people, he said, are now ``waiting to see what the Congress will do.''

The White House says that acting now on a long-term solution would send a serious signal to the market that more oil supply will be coming on line. That, in turn, could ease oil prices, advocates say. Business groups and many Republican lawmakers praised the move to expand the energy supply in the United States.

Several Democratic leaders in Congress said oil companies already are sitting on millions of acres of public and coastal lands where drilling could be undertaken.

A proposal by Democrats to release oil from an emergency reserve has been rejected by the White House as a gimmick that would not reduce prices.