Aug. 11--What a difference $4-a-gallon gasoline can make. Despite concerns about oil-spoiled beaches, despite warnings that military practice ranges might be compromised and despite critics' charges that oil companies aren't exploiting acreage they've already leased, a recent Rasmussen Poll found that 57 percent of Floridians now favor offshore drilling.

Relying on sunshine, windmills and OPEC to meet our energy needs is viewed as wishful thinking.

Yet, drilling on 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf is prohibited by a congressional moratorium. Congress, controlled by Democrats, was unmoved when President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling last month and apparently remains unmoved even by surging public opinion.

"Polls are showing that, even in liberal states and congressional districts, most people now favor lifting the offshore and ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) bans," says Myron Ebell, energy director at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "And more and more people are figuring out that Congress is the problem and are getting angry about it."

For good reason. Only 25 years ago, 60 percent of petroleum consumed in the United States was domestically produced. Today, that figure is 25 percent. Increasingly, we are at the mercy of foreign suppliers, some antagonistic to the United States and others who channel profits to terrorist organizations.

Even among Democrats, staunch opposition to offshore drilling is wavering in the face of soaring gasoline prices, which hit $4 a gallon this summer in Northwest Florida and only in the past few weeks slid back to about $3.80.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, has signaled he would be open to a "compromise" that permits drilling with environmental safeguards -- a position long advanced by congressional Republicans. Another Democrat, Tim Holden of Pennsylvania, also changed his view.

Ironically, the Democrats' argument against more domestic production boils down to saving the planet, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted the other day. But as columnist Charles Krauthammer notes, the United States has "the highest technology to ensure the safest drilling." Blocking U.S. oil drilling means worldwide demand will be met by places such as Kazakhstan, Venezuela and Russia, hardly models of heightened environmental safeguards.

Obstructionists in and out of Congress argue that oil companies don't drill on all offshore leased sites already approved by the government. The reality is that burdensome environmental regulations, environmental court challenges and lengthy lead times required to verify oil reserves result in years of delay before drilling is feasible and can commence.

Meanwhile, prices climb, and not just for gasoline. Utilities forecast substantial increases in electricity rates. When the price of natural gas rises, the cost of running power plants rises, too.

Yet drilling for at least 65 percent of the nation's undiscovered, recoverable oil and 40 percent of its natural gas is prohibited by congressional blockade. Congressional Democrats refuse even to permit the issue to come to a vote; Republicans have vowed to use the issue during the current late-summer recess.

Despite growing public demand, despite surging prices, the blockade persists. Do congressional leaders want energy prices to climb ever upward with no reliable strategy? Do they really think such an approach will force the public to adopt energy-creation schemes like windmills and solar panels as foundational energy sources?

Judging by poll results, the sensible public appears to want the freedom and realism to meet its energy needs today and tomorrow, not in some futuristic utopia.

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Story Source: Northwest Florida Daily News