Jack Kingston

President’s Bush’s announcement yesterday that he was lifting the ban on offshore energy production has placed the ball firmly in Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid’s court.  They can continue obstructing America’s path toward realizing her fuel independence or allow the democratic process to take place and potentially open our domestic resources.

Two editorial boards succinctly make this point today.

• New York Post: “ONE STEP CLOSER TO CHEAPER OIL”
   Congressional Democrats are now the only ones holding up exploration for an estimated 86 billion barrels of American coastal oil.

President Bush yesterday lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling that had been in place since 1990, leaving Congress - whose own longstanding ban is up for renewal later this year - the chance to make a dent in energy prices.

Fat chance of that, though.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi predictably denounced Bush’s move as a giveaway to “big oil” - you know, the folks who pump the oil that heats American homes and powers American cars.  (Click here for the full article)

•  Wall Street Jounal: ‘Free Our Oil’
  That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s catchphrase last week as she continued to grope for an energy policy. One of her ideas was to request “a small drawdown” in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, no irony intended. At least President Bush has finally called the Speaker’s bluff by rescinding the 1990 executive ban on offshore energy exploration.

With Mr. Bush’s belated decision yesterday, Congress’s moratorium on offshore drilling is now the last major political barrier to increasing domestic oil-and-gas production. Yet Democratic leaders have refused to schedule even a single hearing on the topic. (Click here for full article)