Roll call vote number 632 - Congressional action to acknowledge the Law of Supply and Demand, and allow for limited off-shore drilling. The final tally was an overwhelming 370-58 and partially ends the practice whereby the US limits access to its own resources in ways unlike the rest of the industrialized world.
Meanwhile, policy experts and moderate Democrats said that once the moratoriums have been lifted, it’s unlikely that they could ever be reinstated wholesale — even under a Democratic Congress and president.
“Not if oil prices stay they way they’ve been,” said House Natural Resources Chairman Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.Va. Rahall sponsored a bill (HR 6899), which the House passed last week, that would allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific shores but with more restrictions than what would be allowed by letting the ban lapse entirely.
Of course, some in Congress have already vowed that they will try for another outright ban. Too bad it took $4 gasoline to convince most of their colleagues.
