Bush says it’s Congress’s call in off-shore drilling

The White House said Wednesday that President Bush is urging Congress to make the first move on lifting the ban on offshore drilling. If Congress does so, the president will follow course and lift an executive order preventing drilling.

As part of a four-point plan to increase domestic oil production, Bush, in a Rose Garden statement, was set to ask Congress to lift the current moratorium that prevents drilling for what White House officials conservatively estimate to be about 18 billion barrels of oil sitting off the U.S. coast.

{mosads}Keith Hennessey, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters that there is a “two-key” process required to lift the ban, and if Congress will go first, the president will follow suit.

“The president wants to encourage them to turn their key, then he’ll turn his key,” Hennessey said.

White House officials couldn’t say why Bush would only act after Congress does except to say that it would be more “productive” for the two institutions to act in tandem.

The president’s reversal on offshore drilling comes as Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) is advocating the same.

White House officials dismissed that action as two leaders coming to the same conclusion as gas prices continue to shatter records.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the timing,” Hennessey said.

Hennessey said the president has come to believe that technology has increased to the point that drilling offshore can be conducted in “an environmentally responsible and safe way.”

The White House acknowledged that Monday’s national average of $4.08 per gallon of gas is “hurting our economy,” leading Bush to put pressure on Congress to act to increase domestic production.

In addition to offshore drilling, the president was going to again push Congress to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, where the administration estimates there are an additional 10-11 billion barrels of oil.

The president was also asking Congress to reverse a rider in last year’s appropriations bill that halted the leasing process to explore oil shale deposits in the Green River Basin. Hennessey acknowledged that the process of extracting oil from oil shale has long been thought to be economically unfeasible, but the current cost situation has changed that.

“This was a process that was moving forward,” Hennessey said. “It was stopped by a single appropriations rider.”

Lastly, the president was asking that Congress streamline the process for expanding existing oil refineries and give Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman more authority to put a timeline of appeals to stop permitting of expansion.

Under this last proposal, anyone seeking to stop refinery expansion would have to appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals within 60 days of the permit issuance.

The president has struggled to pass most of these energy initiatives in the past, and the White House said Wednesday it is hopeful that the current pain at the pump might spur the Democratic Congress to compromise.

Hennessey noted that Bush compromised on raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for automobiles last year in a move that “was, frankly, cutting against type” for the president.