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Bush urges Congress to end offshore oil drill ban Tabassum Zakaria and Chris Baltimore WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday urged Congress to end a ban on offshore oil drilling, responding to consumer anxiety over record-high gasoline prices with a plan sure to anger environmentalists. "Every American who drives to work, purchases food or ships a product has felt the effect. And families across our country are looking to Washington for a response," Bush said. As average U.S. pump prices pierced the $4-a-gallon level for the first time this month, energy policy has become a key issue in the presidential race ahead of November elections.
(Article continues below) Bush said opening federal lands off the U.S. east and west coasts -- where oil drilling has been banned by both a presidential executive order and a congressional moratorium -- could yield about 18 billion barrels of oil. That would meet current U.S. consumption for about 2 1/2 years, but it would likely take a decade or more to find the oil and produce it. The U.S. Congress banned most offshore drilling in 1981. Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush, followed suit with an executive order banning drilling in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska -- the worst tanker spill in U.S. history. Bush's latest energy plan comes as lawmakers on Capitol Hill wage a war of words over who is to blame for record-high gasoline prices. Republicans and Bush have repeatedly blamed Democrats for blocking legislation that would open offshore lands and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.
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