Jul 14th, 2008 by Liz Opsitnik
President Bush will announce Monday he is lifting an executive order banning offshore oil drilling, the White House said.
He’ll have to convince Congress to get on board with his decision though. The announcement will take place at 1:30 p.m. in the Rose Garden.
In 1990, Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, signed the executive order banning offshore drilling. Bush has been trying to persuade Congress to revoke the law, which was passed in 1981.
“There is no excuse for delay,” the president said in a Rose Garden statement last month.
“In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil, and that means we need to increase supply here at home,” Bush said, adding that there is no more pressing issue for many Americans than gas prices.
Experts say offshore oil drilling will take years to have an effect on oil prices since it takes so long for the actual oil exploration.
But, the White House estimates that there are 18 billion barrels of oil offshore that have not been exploited because of state bans, 10 billion to 12 billion in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Green River Basin, reports CNN.com.
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