布希與麥肯 企圖解除美國外海石油鑽探禁令

President George W. Bush today called on Congress to expand domestic oil production to lower record high oil and gas prices by lifting a ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf that has been in place since 1981.

Drilling for oil offshore is one of four measures the president proposed to increase U.S. oil production - all of them certain to meet resistance from the Democratic Congressional leadership.

Bush says America should develop oil shale in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; he again proposed drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and he also again proposed increasing refinery capacity.

In his speech in the Rose Garden at the White House this morning, the president blamed Congress for blocking these methods of oil production, saying, "I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past. Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions."

"If congressional leaders leave for the 4th of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act. And Americans will rightly ask how high oil - how high gas prices have to rise before the Democratic-controlled Congress will do something about it," Bush said.

"The proposals I've outlined will take years to have their full impact. There is no excuse for delay - as a matter of fact, it's a reason to move swiftly," he said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said last night in advance of the president' energy speech, "The President's proposal sounds like another page from the Administration's Energy Policy that was literally written by the oil industry: give away more public resources to the very same oil companies that are sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands they've already leased."

If oil companies tapped the 68 million federal acres of leased land it would generate an estimated 4.8 million barrels of oil a day - six times what the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would produce at its peak, Pelosi said.

"The fact is 80 percent of the oil available on the Outer Continental Shelf is in regions that are already open to leasing, but the oil companies haven't decided it's worth their time to drill there," the speaker said.

In defense of what the Democratic leadership has done since it won control of Congress in 2006, Pelosi said, "In just the last year, Congress has promoted energy independence by raising efficiency standards for vehicles for the first time in 32 years, investing in American-grown biofuels, and forcing President Bush to increase gas supplies by suspending government purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."

"We have provided enforcement tools to go after those who are speculating on oil and manipulating the price and we will continue to push for solutions that end our dependence on foreign oil," she said.