Editorial: Digging a hole

Monday, July 3, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

The House late last week approved a bill that ends a 25-year federal moratorium on offshore drilling for oil and gas and gives states where drilling is being allowed a portion of the federal royalties collected on such work.

According to a story in The Washington Post, the measure would allow states to permit companies to drill anywhere within 50 miles of their coastlines. Meanwhile, those states that choose to keep drilling even farther away - at least 100 miles offshore - would have to pass legislation affirming it every five years. A similar, though more limited, measure is still being debated in the Senate.

Environmental groups criticized the House measure, saying that the potential for spills endangered fragile fisheries, coral reefs and other underwater habitat and that the Republican-driven House hasn't done anything to cut America's oil and gas consumption.

In his January State of the Union address, President Bush said, "America is addicted to oil," and he emphasized a need to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy." Calling for at-will oil-drilling 50 miles, or fewer, from the U.S. coastline doesn't sound like the kind of alternative to which the president was referring.

It is ridiculous to think that drilling in some of these delicate ecosystems will not do them harm. But even those who don't care about drilling's environmental effects should be able to see that aggressively searching for more oil without aggressive conservation efforts only drives America's oil addiction.