Congress warms to more oil drilling

Senate Democrats are promising a series of votes next week on offshore oil drilling. That announcement frees up a vote on a defense bill Republicans had held up because of
partisan disputes over the country’s energy policy.
   
Majority Leader Harry Reid says he’s ready to take up two proposals. One is a compromise bill that’ll allow limited oil and gas drilling 50 miles out in the Atlantic off Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia, and off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
   
Republican leaders are expected to push for broader offshore drilling and are likely to call for lifting drilling bans along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as well as the eastern Gulf of
Mexico.
   
Several senators from both parties support the multi-state bill, though Florida Democrat Bill Nelson isn’t among them. Nelson is hinting at a filibuster, saying he won’t let Florida be “a
sacrificial lamb.“