As you probably heard, President Bush lifted the Executive Order on offshore oil drilling yesterday -- the same one his father happened to have executively ordered. Even though he's the decider, Bush's decision to lift the EO is, thankfully, largely symbolic. Congress has its own ban that it has renewed every year since 1980, long before the Bush 41 EO.

This morning, Bush held a rare press conference where he actually answered questions on the EO, in addition to the mortgage crisis, trade, and other issues. Below is our live blogging of the questions that pertained to drilling.

Bush's speech was short, and he spent only a few minutes addressing the EO. He did manage a few jabs at the Democrats, saying, "the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is Congress" and "as soon as Congress lifts these bans we can get the oil from the sea floor to the refiners and the American people."

He highlighted "responsible offshore exploration" that is possible due to his favorite "new technologies". But the phrase rings hollow in our ears -- sort of like "clean coal". His final, motivational words: "Bottom line is this, we're going through a tough time."

The Q&A is essentially verbatim- our thoughts (are in parenthesis).

Q: Gas prices are approaching $5 a gallon, offshore drilling will take time to get running, what are you gonna do about gas prices now?

A:Gas prices are reflected in the price of crude oil, and therefore it makes sense to me to say to the world we're going to use new technology to explore offshore, in ANWR, in shale -- there is no immediate fix. If I had a magic wand I would use it, but I don't have a magic wand. Tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve doesn't address the fundamental issues (he's right) -- and it's what I've been saying since I was president -- alternative energies and drilling for more oil (except the only "alternative" to hydrocarbons he mentions the whole time is nuclear). If we followed my energy plan from the beginning right now we'd be using more of our own oil and sending less money overseas.

Q:Are you able to say if oil prices in the future will come down a lot? (which we think is a weird question -- unless they are referring to October of this year...)

A:I can't do that- unless there is a focused effort to bring up supply ... I'm encouraged that the Saudis are investing more in their oil fields -- I'm discouraged that some nation's subsidize the purchase of gasoline (oh snap, China and Venezuela). This is just a transition period and all of us want to get away from our reliance on hydrocarbons. One day people will be using battery power in their cars, and the question is where are we going to get our electricity, which is why I'm a big supporter of nuclear power. I don't want to be a "told you so", but if you go back and look at what we put out early in the administration, we knew this was going to happen (seriously Mr. President, no one likes a "told you so").

Q: What nobody debates is if American use less energy, it will reduce demand -- why haven't you called on Americans to use less energy?

A: The marketplace works (ah, Republicans and their free market), we have worked with Congress to change CAFE standards and we have a mandatory fuel requirement. People can figure out if they need to drive more or less, they can balance their own checkbook. People can be wise on their own. If you're not in your home, don't leave the AC running -- there are lots of things people can do. Its presumptuous on my part to tell consumers how to lead their lives. It's a philosophical difference, should the government spend their money or should they spend their money. I understand people are going to make adjustments to meet their own needs. And I bet that Americans are going to use less gas (he doesn't need to bet, we are and have been since 2007), and in the meantime new technologies are going to come out to help them.

Q: You never mention oil companies. Are they tapping all the resources they have?

A: Do I think the oil companies are investing their capital to find more oil? Absolutely. They gotta buy the leases -- that takes capital, it takes a lot of money to do the geophysics -- that ties up capital, then they put the rig out there -- that's a lot of capital tied up. I think they're exploring and hopefully a lot of people continue to explore. You can't help but notice there is some volatility in price. The fundamentals are whats really driving the price of oil, demand has increased while supply hasn't. There are some suspected reserves and we have to go after them in an environmentally friendly way. Environmentalists say, "but what about the reefs?" Well, I'm a fisherman so I like the reefs. You don't have to drill into the reef, you can do it at an angle to get under the reef -- horizontal drilling (and here we thought this was an idea dreamed up by Mr. Burns to get the oil under Springfield Elementary...although Mr. Burns does bear a striking resemblance to Dick Cheney). People need to recognize how the industry has changed.

So there you have it folks: it's the Democrat's fault we didn't start drilling sooner, the market doesn't need help pushing more efficient products because when no one has any money to spend anymore, the market reacts, and lastly, Mr. Burns is real and he lives in Washington.

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