WASHINGTON — President Bush, seeking to put political pressure on the Democratic-run Congress in an election year plagued by soaring gasoline prices, called Wednesday for lifting federal bans on offshore oil drilling and other measures to boost oil production.
"For many Americans, there is no more pressing concern than the price of gasoline," Bush said.
The president -- who faces opposition in Congress for his proposals to drill offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as to the leasing of Western federal lands for extraction of oil from shale -- hopes to leverage the rising price of gas to get Congress to budge before election day.
"There is no excuse for delay," Bush said, acknowledging that it would take years for any of his proposals to pump new oil into the U.S. economy. "It's time to move swiftly."
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, spoke out a day before in calling for an easing of the offshore drilling ban.
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democrats' presumptive nominee, supports the moratorium.
Conservation groups say long-term solutions lie with the development of alternative fuels rather than drilling for more oil.
Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, likened Bush's speech to "fuel mongering" and suggested that his entreaty to open the arctic refuge left out key facts in an effort to manipulate public opinion.
"What he failed to mention was data released recently by his own Department of Energy that shows, unequivocally, that drilling in the arctic refuge will have no effect on today's high gas prices," Shogan said. "At peak production, two decades from now, the amount of oil speculated to be available in the refuge would lower gas prices by less than 4 cents a gallon.
"Basically, the president wants to destroy one of our last pristine wilderness places to save us a few pennies 20 years from now."
Bush said Wednesday that in the short term, the U.S. economy would continue to rely on oil, and he attacked Congress for blocking his repeated calls for drilling in the Arctic.
"Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected every proposal," said Bush, flanked by his Energy and Interior secretaries in the White House Rose Garden. "And Americans are paying the price at the pump."
