Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow offshore oil drilling on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Click here to see how your local Member of Congress voted.
Fifteen Republicans voted for the bill, 13 Democrats voted against it, even though it was a Democratic sponsored bill.
Voting yes were 221 Democrats and 15 Republicans.
The Senate may take up the issue later this week.
Roll Call asks whether this is a serious move to start drilling or a way to give political cover to Democrats who need to have some way to tell voters this fall that they have an energy plan.
This idea of expanded offshore drilling is a notion that has the backing of President Bush and Sen. John McCain, but the specifics of this bill are not nearly what Republicans wanted.
CNN reported:
Many Republicans opposed the bill because it would allow new oil drilling only between 50 and 100 miles offshore. Republicans generally want to allow new drilling starting 3 miles from shore.
Republicans also objected to provisions repealing tax cuts for the oil industry and what they said was a lack of incentive for states to allow drilling on their land.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, told reporters Tuesday: "The American taxpayers have been ripped off for years on offshore drilling. This bill changes that."
Before the vote, Pelosi said the bill presented a choice between "the status quo, which is preferred by Big Oil," and "change for the future to take our country in a new direction."
Click here to see where offshore drilling is currently banned and where it is currently allowed.
As I told you in an Al's Morning Meeting post back in June:
What is the "moratorium" and what does it (or did it) do?
Ever since 1981 when Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Moratorium, oil and gas companies have been prevented from drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Congress has to pass annual extensions to the ban.
When President Bush proposed lifting the ban, he would reverse the protection that his father worked for in 1990.
The coastal reserves (18 billion barrels) are equal to the amount of oil the U.S. would produce in almost 10 years (that's 3,600 days producing 5 million barrels per day). The coastal reserves are also nearly equal to
what some experts believe can be recovered at Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska.
What do offshore rigs look like? How do they work?
Natural gas and oil rigs have been drilling offshore for more than 100 years. The rigs themselves may be permanent, may be ship based or may be movable.
Read more.
In July,
President Bush lifted a weak presidential moratorium on drilling for oil and natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf.
