Oil and Water ; Bush's Offshore Drilling Crusade

Summary

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IN SEIZING on the gas price shock to push for more aggressive domestic oil exploration, the Bush administration is following a familiar pattern. A national crisis has become fodder for advancing a preexisting and only loosely related piece of the president's agenda.

"For years, my administration has been calling on Congress to expand domestic oil production," Bush said this week. Note that this has been on the president's to-do list "for years"; the currently soaring price of oil is only an opportunity to press the case more aggressively. Bush did so this week by lifting an executive moratorium on drilling in the Atlantic Ocean, which was first established under his father.

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Oil and Water ; Bush's Offshore Drilling Crusade

The move leaves only a statutory ban on offshore drilling, which brings us to the president's second cynical motive: Shifting...

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