Bush keeps executive padlock on OCS drilling.(Correction, Please!)(Outer Continental Shelf)

ITEM: In his widely reported energy policy speech on June 18, President Bush bitterly castigated congressional Democrats for obstructing domestic energy development. The president noted that he "has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production." But, he said, "Unfortunately, Democrats on Capitol Hill have rejected virtually every proposal--and now Americans are paying the price at the pump for this obstruction." The first point in his four-point energy plan is a challenge to Congress to "lift the legislative ban on oil exploration in the OCS [Outer Continental Shelf]."

CORRECTION: President Bush is certainly correct in pointing out that Democrats in Congress and their allies have done everything possible to stifle, strangle, and stop every practical, economically feasible form of domestic energy production. Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydro power-which are the realistic sources of energy for most of our present and immediate future needs--have all been under sustained attack for decades. The Democrats insist we must switch instead to so-called renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, and biofuels, all of which combined can only provide a small fraction of our energy needs.

Nevertheless, our current energy crisis is a bipartisan affair, and nowhere, perhaps, is this more apparent than the lockup of our OCS energy reserves. President Bush as much as admitted this in his June 18 address, but few media reporters or commentators picked up on the enormous import of his statement. Immediately following his forensic blistering of the congressional Democrats, he said: "There's also an executive prohibition on exploration in the OCS. When Congress lifts the legislative ban, I will lift the executive prohibition."

Whoa, what's this? An "executive prohibition" on OCS exploration? Yes, that's right. As THE NEW AMERICAN pointed out a year and a half ago ("Lifeblood From the Ocean Floor," December 11, 2006), while the battle was raging in Washington, D.C., over OCS drilling, President Bush could "unilaterally open up some OCS exploration and development by simply canceling the executive moratorium put in place by his father and President Clinton. He has had the power to do that for the past six years, but has not done so."

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And, as he made plain in his June 18 speech, he has no intention of lifting ...