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McCain Pushes Offshore-Drilling Plan
By David Jackson, USA Today
July 25, 2008
Article Excerpt:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Tuesday that the nation faces an "energy crisis" with both economic and national security implications, requiring more offshore oil drilling to lower gas prices and offset imports from hostile countries.
"My friends, we have to drill offshore-- we have to do it," McCain said during a town-hall-style meeting in Rochester, N.H.
McCain also touted alternatives to oil such as nuclear power and batteries to power cars, and he cast Democratic rival Barack Obama as a foe of increased energy production. Criticizing Obama's opposition to drilling for oil offshore, McCain joked that the campaign should change its slogan from "Yes, we can," to "No, we won't."
Congress must vote every year to renew a federal moratorium on drilling off most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, covering 80% of offshore drilling sites. McCain wants the moratorium lifted; Obama doesn't.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said Obama's stand on energy is a $150 billion plan to develop alternative energy sources such as bio-fuels and low-emission coal plants that would "create millions of new jobs, keep the cost of energy affordable and secure our energy independence once and for all."
McCain says those ideas are no substitute for increasing domestic production of the fuel America depends on most-- oil.
Last month, McCain supported a GOP energy plan in the Senate that would have allowed states to request to have the federal moratorium lifted for waters off their coasts. The measure was voted down 56-42.
Last week, President Bush lifted an executive moratorium on offshore drilling; Congress would need to follow suit before drilling could take place. Congress has not yet voted on renewing the moratorium this year.
McCain plans to promote more domestic oil exploration as well as the lifting of the moratorium when he visits New Orleans on Thursday. The Louisiana coast and some areas of the Gulf have oil wells that are exempt from the moratorium.
McCain has argued that 14 billion barrels of recoverable oil are available in waters now off-limits that would wean the U.S. off foreign oil and eventually bring prices down. Loosening the nation's dependence on foreign oil would cut off billions of dollars to countries that "don't like us," he said Tuesday.
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