Obama lifts the moratorium on off-shore oil exploration

For all the talk of partisan politics in Washington, it is worth noting that a Democratic President has lifted the moratorium on exploring offshore drilling for oil and gas. One could take the view that President Obama is hoping to garner support from Republicans for the federal climate and energy legislation, due to be introduced in the Senate next week. But if so, why make the announcement BEFORE the effort to win votes is under way? Could it be instead that the President has heard the advice of South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham, who says that the way to unite Americans on issues of energy and the climate is by framing the debate around national security and energy independence? After all, we send over $1 billion a day to regime hostile to our values and our own generals call the intersecting concerns of climate change and foreign oil a dual threat to our national security and economic well being.

Here in South Carolina we are fortunate -- there is little oil off our coast and probably not much gas. But there is a great deal of wind potential and so the more attention we give to finding homegrown energy sources the sooner we will come to appreciate that our clean and renewable sources -- wind, sun and biomass -- are also our most abundant. The pending federal energy legislation will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, help us become energy independent, create jobs and increase our energy diversity. Senator Graham has known this all along. Hopefully the rest of his party will get behind him and support a comprehensive solution.