House Democrats are pushing for the gov't to accelerate its process for selling leases to explore for oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faced more pressure to ease a congressional ban on expanded offshore drilling for oil, as both Republicans and Democrats sought to show they are responding to high energy prices in an election year.

With several polls showing a rise in public support for more drilling offshore, Republicans are hammering away at the issue, starting with seeking to open long-closed areas on the outer continental shelf, where the government says an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil and several trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie undiscovered.

President George W. Bush Monday lifted a decades-old presidential moratorium on drilling on the outer continental shelf. The act was largely symbolic, but it put more pressure on Congress to lift its own moratorium on offshore exploration, which expires at the end of September.

A bipartisan group of 10 Senators -- five from each side of the aisle -- is working to develop energy legislation that could gain enough political momentum to pass.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are pushing for the government to accelerate its process for selling leases to explore for oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.) said he would support opening up more areas for exploration, but he suggested existing areas not under the moratorium that aren't being explored should be a priority, including the millions of acres off Alaska's southwest shores that aren't closed under the moratorium but which haven't been offered by the government. Mr. Bingaman believes that, besides the Gulf of Mexico, the area off southwest Alaska offers some of the best drilling prospects in the outer continental shelf.