There was a Congressional ploy/strategy to allow States to bypass the Federal regulation that forbade offshore drilling. That ploy was voted down in the Senate. But, that ploy is still alive and well in the plans of McCain and many other Republicans.
So, when you hear W defer to Jeb, that is the background. The Reps want to give the states the right to pursue the oil and do so on their own grounds. This way, you can allow
California, Oregon, and Washington, and the east coast states as well as the Gulf coast states to decide themselves what to do and how to do it and how to regulate it and how much the state gets paid for allowing it.
If Jeb doesn't want to drill, then Jeb's opposition doesn't disallow Louisiana or Texas from going after it.
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"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -Thomas Jefferson
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