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Bending To Pressure, Pelosi Says Drilling Will Get Look

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The New York Times

Published: August 17, 2008

WASHINGTON - Dropping her opposition to a vote on coastal oil exploration, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that the House would consider expanded offshore drilling as part of broad energy legislation when Congress returns next month.

In the weekly Democratic radio address, Pelosi criticized Republicans as focusing too narrowly on offshore drilling as a solution to high gasoline prices, but said she would bow to demands that the House revisit a drilling ban that has been imposed annually since the 1980s.

She said legislation being assembled by Democrats "will consider opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling, with appropriate safeguards, and without taxpayer subsidies to big oil."

The decision came after growing anxiety among Democrats that Republicans were scoring politically with their call for a vote on offshore drilling. Though Congress is on its August break, a rotating group of House Republicans has rallied daily on the House floor, demanding that Pelosi call lawmakers back for a vote to allow oil companies to pursue offshore resources.

Expanded coastal drilling would be just one element of a broader bill that also would contain provisions opposed by Republicans, including a requirement that utilities produce a certain amount of electricity through renewable fuels.

Pelosi said other elements of the Democratic measure would include requiring a release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to quickly lower gas prices and a proposal intended to cut down on speculation in energy futures.

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