WASHINGTON (AFP)--Republican John McCain flew Tuesday to a Gulf of Mexico oil rig to demand expanded offshore drilling, but Democrats hit back by branding the White House candidate as a puppet of profit-soaked U.S. oil companies.
The Republican candidate toured the platform as polls show a majority of voters back more offshore oil exploration, despite the fact it could take years to bring such wells into production.
"We need to start drilling offshore at advanced oil rigs like this one," McCain said, using the visit to lambast the energy policies of his Democratic rival Barack Obama. "Senator Obama opposes new drilling, he said it won't solve our problem and that it's 'not real' - he is wrong and the American people know it.
"We all want to conserve, (but) we all know that conservation will not be sufficient to put us on the road to energy independence," McCain said, clambering over the rig during the visit.
"The nation is sending $700 billion every year overseas to countries that do not like us very much. When I am president that is going to stop," McCain said on the rig, 220 kilometers 130 miles off New Orleans.
Democrats attempted to use McCain's visit to the rig, operated by Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (COP), to associate him with high gasoline prices which have bitten deep into the budgets of working-class people.
"The reality is that Senator McCain can visit oil rigs and do photo-ops all he wants," said former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, an Obama supporter, in a conference call with reporters.
"But it is pretty clear from the policies he's advocating that he's literally over the barrel when it comes to the oil industry, basically, bought lock, stock and barrel by the oil industry."
McCain opposed an expansion in offshore drilling for years, but changed his tack in June, and has since said several times in campaign speeches "we have to drill here and we have to drill now."
Feeling the pressure, Obama has since said he would agree to some extension of coastal oil exploration to break a deadlock in Washington over a broader energy plan.
But Democrats still argue that oil from expanded drilling is at least a decade away, and even then would do little to significantly reduce prices at the pump.
Polls suggest a clear majority in the U.S. support lifting a federal moratorium on drilling off most U.S. coastline that has been in place since 1981.
In June, President George W. Bush lifted executive restrictions on such exploration and called on Congress to lift its ban on drilling on the outer continental shelf.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the weekend offered to hold a vote on offshore drilling when Congress returns from its summer break - but only if the move is part of a comprehensive energy plan including funding for public transport and alternative energy.
Those conditions could cost the support of Republicans