Excerpts from the article
"We're serious about that, and we're not going to change that," he told reporters and business executives at BIO International, an annual biotechnology industry conference in San Diego.
Schwarzenegger, who has endorsed McCain's presidential bid, said the federal offshore drilling ban was not to blame for soaring gas prices. In a statement issued earlier in the day, the governor said technological innovations and expanded fuel choices for consumers ultimately will lead the way to reduced fuel costs.
"We are in this situation because of our dependence on traditional petroleum-based oil," Schwarzenegger said in the statement, which referred only to Bush's call for lifting the ban and did not mention McCain.
Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to lift the federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling as a way to boost domestic energy production. His call followed a statement earlier in the week by McCain, who said removing the ban would be a key part of his energy plan. He said states should be allowed to receive some of the royalty revenue from energy taken from their coastal waters.
McCain's proposal was endorsed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, considered a possible running mate for the Arizona senator. Crist cited rising fuel prices for dropping his long-standing support for the federal government's moratorium.
McCain's position puts him at odds with Schwarzenegger, only the latest issue on which the two Republicans differ. While both have expressed a sense of urgency in dealing with global warming, they disagree on how to provide health care reform, setting timelines for troop withdrawal in Iraq and abortion. I'm very happy that both are strong in this area," he said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said lifting the drilling moratorium is an unnecessary risk that could allow unreliable oil rigs to be as close as three miles to California's beaches. "Californians are all too familiar with the consequences of offshore drilling," Feinstein said in a statement issued Tuesday. She cited the 1969 spill off the coast of Santa Barbara that killed scores of birds and marine mammals, and soiled miles of coastline with balls of tar. "And we know this could happen again," Feinstein said.
There are 79 active oil and gas leases off California's coast in federal waters, 43 of which are producing, said John Romero, a spokesman with the Pacific office of the Minerals Management Service, part of the U.S. Interior Department. The others are tied up in court. An estimated 10 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and nearly 17 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas lie three miles from California's coast,....
McCain wants to allow states to decide whether to explore their coastal waters for those undiscovered reserves, something Californians would be unlikely to support, said state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass. "The idea of increasing offshore drilling off the coast of California I think is absurd, and I can't even imagine we would entertain that," the Los Angeles Democrat said...."
