US-Offshore Oil-Bush
President Bush lifted a long-standing White House ban Monday on new oil and gas drilling off the nation's coastlines and pressured Congress to take a similar step, stoking the battle over how Washington should respond to high gasoline prices.

Bush's decision to lift the executive order imposed by his father in 1990 and renewed by Bill Clinton will have no effect unless Congress cancels its own ban on offshore drilling.

But now that the price of gasoline is consistently sitting above $4 a gallon, his action places the possibility of new drilling squarely in the public debate and gives him a political cudgel.

Lawmakers are increasingly nervous about high gas prices in an election year, and Bush made clear his intent to use the argument favoring drilling against the majority party in Congress.

"With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away," he told reporters gathered in the White House Rose Garden.

"This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the US Congress.

The president's position raised special concern among politicians from California, where an oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969 led to worldwide publication of photographs showing oil-soaked birds and sludge-coated beaches.

"In California, we know offshore drilling is not the answer," Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, said in a statement.

Instead, Schwarzenegger called for development of alternative energy sources -- a category that includes wind and solar power, among other replacements for fossil fuels -- and said a choice of power supplies was "the only way we will ultimately bring down fuel costs." The congressional ban on new offshore drilling dates to 1981, when it was approved as part of an Interior Department appropriations bill.

It has been renewed annually since then. On Monday, two key Democratic senators -- West Virginia's Robert C. Byrd, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and California's Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Interior appropriations subcommittee -- pledged to fight any effort to relax the ban.

Congressional Republicans have pushed Democrats to support expanded domestic oil production, and they plan a new effort next week to allow offshore drilling.