President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to end a federal ban on offshore oil drilling and open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, asserting that those steps and others would lower gasoline prices and “strengthen our national security.” In recent years, the president said, “scientists have developed innovative techniques to reach Anwar's oil with virtually no impact on the land or local wildlife,” referring to the wildlife refuge by its acronym. He continued, “I urge members of Congress to allow this remote region to bring enormous benefits to the American people.” President Bush also urged Congress to approve the extraction of oil from shale on federal lands, something he said can be done far more economically now than a few years ago, and to speed the approval process for building new refineries. Bush sought to take full political advantage of soaring fuel prices by portraying Republican lawmakers as imaginative and forward-looking and the Democratic majority in Congress as obstructionists on energy policy. “I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past,” Bush said. “Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions. If Congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act.” The president's move to end the ban on offshore drilling reverses his longstanding position on the issue. Together with the other proposals he laid out on Wednesday, it underscores how $4-a-gallon gas has become a major issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. A growing number of Republicans are lining up in opposition to the federal ban. The party's presumptive presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, used a speech in Houston on Tuesday to say he now favors offshore drilling, an announcement that infuriated environmentalists who had long viewed him as an ally. Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, immediately joined McCain, saying that he, too, now wants an end to the ban. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, reacted quickly to the president's remarks on Wednesday. “This week's flip-flop on offshore oil drilling by President Bush and Senator John McCain is nothing more than a cynical campaign ploy that will do nothing to lower energy prices, and represents another big giveaway to oil companies already making billions in profits,” Reid said in a statement. On Tuesday, before Bush's decision became known, the drilling issue was already causing a heated back-and-forth on the campaign trail. McCain sought to straddle the divide between environmentalists and the energy industry, while facing accusations from his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama, that he had capitulated to the oil industry. Bush has said for years that he favors opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and in 2006 he signed into law a bill that expanded exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. But the topic of coastal drilling elsewhere has been an extremely sensitive one in the Bush family; Bush's father signed a presidential executive order in 1990 banning coastal oil exploration, and Bush's brother Jeb was an outspoken opponent of offshore drilling when he was governor of Florida. Now, though, President Bush is considering retracting his father's order. Although the chief White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Bush “is not taking any executive action” on Wednesday, two people outside the White House said such a move was under serious consideration, and a senior White House official did not dispute their account. “This is a strong point of discussion inside the White House,” said Representative John E. Peterson, a Pennsylvania Republican who has been asking Bush for years to rescind his father's action. Peterson is also leading an effort in Congress to repeal its ban. __
