US President Barack Obama announced on Wednesday plans for a broad expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling in an effort to win Republican support for new proposals to fight climate change. Obama, a Democrat, said his administration would consider new areas for drilling in the mid and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while "studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic."
The president, who needs bipartisan support to pass a bill that would set limits on US greenhouse gas emissions, cautioned that expanding drilling was not a catch-all answer to US energy challenges. "Drilling alone cannot come close to meeting our long-term energy needs, and ... for the sake of the planet and our energy independence, we need to begin the transition to cleaner fuels now," Obama said in prepared remarks.
"I know that we can come together to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation that will foster new industries and millions of new jobs protecting our planet and helping us become more energy independent," he said. For more than 20 years, drilling was banned in most offshore areas of the United States outside the Gulf of Mexico because of concerns that spills could harm the environment.
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