Pelosi to address nation on gas prices

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hitting back directly at President Bush and congressional Republicans on energy and gas prices.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) will deliver the Democrats’ weekly radio address, which is a response to the president’s weekly address to the country. She will take aim at Republican energy policies, highlighting Bush's and Vice President Cheney’s background in the oil industry, and lay out the Democrats’ latest plan for energy independence and addressing high gasoline prices.

{mosads}“America faces a choice: a continuation of the Bush-Cheney-McCain approach that perpetuates the failed policies that have produced soaring prices,” Pelosi will say, according to a partial transcript of her remarks released Friday, “or a comprehensive, bipartisan strategy that develops new and traditional sources of energy.”

That partial transcript does not mention whether the Democrats’ plan will include offshore drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, which is currently banned by a moratorium.

But a Democratic leadership aide said the address will further elaborate on her openness to a broad energy package that includes offshore drilling.

Earlier this week, in an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” she dropped her firm opposition to an offshore drilling vote.

Pelosi is to outline a plan supported by congressional Democrats and Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) to invest in clean, renewable resources like wind, solar and biofuels, and promote greater efficiency and conservation.

Earlier this week, Pelosi also said she’d like to see changes in the amount oil companies pay to develop taxpayer-owned oil and gas.

Pelosi and other Democratic leaders pick the person to respond to the president, but it is rare for the Speaker to deliver the address herself.

Republicans, who’ve staged a talk-a-thon on the House floor during the August recess, said Pelosi’s movement toward drilling is too little, too late.

“While the Speaker now claims to embrace a comprehensive energy plan that includes more conservation, more innovation, and more American energy production, the Democrats’ utter inaction on this issue trumps their newfound, hollow support for the very reforms Republicans have been promoting all year long,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) said in a written statement.