WASHINGTON — President Bush chastised Democrats on Saturday for refusing to allow a vote on lifting the federal ban on offshore oil drilling before lawmakers departed for their summer recess.
“To reduce pressure on prices, we need to increase the supply of oil, especially oil produced here at home,” Bush said in his weekly radio address. It was the fourth time last week that he called for Congress to end the drilling restrictions off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Bush acknowledged it would be years before any of the oil beneath the offshore waters could be pumped but said “lifting the ban would create new opportunities for American workers and businessmen.”
Congressional Democrats have argued that oil companies already have large areas of federal land and waters where they can drill for oil. The Associated Press
