U.S. legislators attempting to counter President George W. Bush’s lifting of an offshore drilling ban have countered with an impromptu “drill or drop” bill for offshore acreage which was nevertheless voted down in the House of Representatives.

The Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act, really an unpassed bill, failed to notch the two thirds majority needed under House rules for the bill’s rapid passing into law a majority in favour. The bill was aimed a speeding up domestic production of oil and gas by forcing companies to explore by drilling or surrender acreage and by implementing yearly lease sales akin to those in other oil provinces.

The bill’s Democrat authors were also looking for more drilling in already drilled Alaskan waters in an effort to produce oil and gas enough to justify the building of a new Alaskan pipeline.

Some 700 million barrels of oil “bought and paid for by the American tax payer” is warehoused in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and short of releasing 10 percent “over time” to ease gasoline prices, Democrats had hoped the Domestic Drill Bill would increase flows.

“The SPR is 97 1/2 percent full. The fullest it has ever been in history,” Dem. Speaker Nancy Pelosis said in a statement. ws@scandoil.com