Bush Lifts Coastline Drilling Moratorium, Leading Senate OCS Drilling Opponent Reacts

Press Release

BUSH LIFTS COASTLINE DRILLING MORATORIUM, LEADING SENATE OCS DRILLING OPPONENT REACTS

Sen. Menendez says coastline drilling will never lower gas prices, American families need relief now

Today, President Bush announced that he is lifting an executive ban on drilling up and down the east and west coasts of the U.S. originally implemented by President George H. W. Bush.

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a leading opponent of drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and author of the COAST Act to permanently ban drilling there, released the following statement:

"As American families struggle with gas prices in 2008, President Bush is pushing a plan that won't produce a drop of oil until 2017 and won't lower gas prices ever. The administration's own Energy Information Agency has shown that coastline drilling would not lower oil prices. American families are getting squeezed by gas prices today and deserve a plan that brings them relief now, not years from now. There are serious, concrete steps we can and should take instead to bring relief at the pump. "

To bring down artificially high gas prices in the near term, we must crack down on speculation in the oil markets. To increase domestic oil production, we must hold the oil companies accountable by pushing them to utilize the 68 million acres of unused land already leased to them by American taxpayers. To cut our dependence on oil in the long run and make sure we never again have to endure a gas price crisis, we must transition from a transportation system based on oil to one based on renewable energy and advanced alternative fuels. And we can do it in the time George Bush and John McCain would have us wait for minimal oil production along our coastlines.

"Let's be clear, this coastline drilling plan is not a serious proposal to help American families. This is exploitation of pain at the pump to give yet another handout to oil companies. Instead of buying into this overhyped, oversold plan, we as a nation have the ability and ingenuity to take a smarter course of action."

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