The House voted on Thursday to approve oil and gas exploration in coastal waters that have been protected from drilling for 25 years. The vote was largely along party lines, 232 to 187, for a measure that would sharply expand efforts to make use of energy supplies beyond the Gulf of Mexico, the only area unaffected by executive branch and Congressional bans on drilling.

"This is really the first major step in producing domestic energy that we have taken in almost 30 years," said Representative Richard W. Pombo, Republican of California, chairman of the House Resources Committee and the chief sponsor of the bill.

Whether the drilling bans are ultimately eliminated depends on the Senate, where the chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, has been trying to build support for a measure that would expand oil and gas exploration in the gulf in an area west of Tampa, Fla., known as Lease Sale 181.

Mr. Domenici still lacks enough support to win Senate passage of his bill, but he said he was optimistic "that Congress can do something this year to increase environmentally sound energy production" in the coastal waters, known as the Outer Continental Shelf.

Passage of the House bill to a large degree reflected the persistent split in approaches to energy policy as prices for crude oil, gasoline and natural gas remain unusually high. In hours of debate before voting, Republicans repeatedly expressed a need to tap more of the resources that the United States controls, while Democrats argued for bills that encouraged conservation and placed a greater emphasis on renewable energy sources.

Under the House bill, the federal moratorium would remain in effect up to 50 miles offshore unless a state petitioned the Interior Department to allow drilling. The request would require the approval of the legislature and the governor.

Waters 50 to 100 miles offshore would be open for drilling unless the state petitioned the department to retain the moratorium. Companies would be free to drill in waters 100 to 200 miles offshore.

The bill would also create revenue sharing between the federal government and any state where new resources were mined, a change from current policy in which all royalties are claimed by the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the change would cost the federal government $102 billion from 2007 to 2016.

But Mr. Pombo said that figure did not take into account the tax revenues lost on the billions of dollars Americans are spending on energy from foreign sources.

One of the strongest opponents of the bill was Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York, who echoed many Democratic concerns that the bill was a giveaway to the oil companies and, at best, a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

Arguing for bolder conservation efforts, like high fuel standards for cars, Mr. Boehlert said he worried that the gas and oil that might be recovered would be more valuable to the country in a time of emergency.

"Drilling today," he said, "depletes the oil we may need tomorrow." But other lawmakers argued that ignoring the ample supplies of natural gas that the Interior Department estimates are available would leave prices unnaturally high, harming American industries.

"This country cannot compete in the global marketplace without natural gas," said Representative John E. Peterson, Republican of Pennsylvania. "Natural gas keeps us competitive until renewables become a bigger part of our energy portfolio."

Also on Thursday the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to the Interior Department appropriations bill that would punish companies that refused to renegotiate their offshore leases and pay full royalties during times of high prices.

The amendment, sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, passed by a vote of 15 to 13, after the panel also passed an amendment from Mr. Domenici that encouraged the Interior Department to renegotiate their leases.
(Por Michael Janofsky, The NY Times, 30/06/2006)