Drilling Strategies, Sensible and Fantastical The Republicans and Mitt Romney have relentlessly accused President Obama of not moving swiftly enough to tap the nations" considerable offshore reserves of oil and natural gas. It is a tired complaint. Except for a necessary drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill in 2010, Mr. Obama has always embraced offshore oil and gas exploration as an important component of a rounded energy strategy. What he has not embraced is the drill-now-drill-everywhere approach of President George W. Bush, now embodied in a House bill that would open the entire continental shelf and all of Alaska's waters to drilling. The Obama administration's latest drilling plan, which covers the years 2012 to 2017, would allow 12 large lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and three smaller, carefully selected lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Cook Inlet in Alaska. There would be preliminary seismic testing, but no leasing, in the Atlantic. The approach is broadly similar to the leasing program announced in March 2010 and put on hold after the BP spill. The Republicans, however, are in a lather. Representative Doc Hastings, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, called the Obama plan "a giant step backward for American offshore energy production." Mr. Hastings has unveiled a bill that would allow drilling rigs on the coasts of Maine, California, Oregon and Washington, and in Alaska's Bristol Bay, a rich commercial fishery that even President George H. W. Bush chose to protect. The administration says its plan will give the industry access to three-quarters of America's recoverable offshore oil and gas resources. This is theoretically true but highly unlikely in practice if the administration honors its pledge to protect sensitive waters, wildlife and native fishing grounds in Alaska. Mr. Hastings's plan assumes that places like Maine and California will welcome drilling, which they have strongly opposed in the past. The deeper Republican fraud is the idea that a country with only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves - and a daily appetite for more than one-fifth of the world's oil production - can drill its way to energy independence. Mr. Obama correctly sees drilling as one element in a multipronged approach that also includes investments in energy efficiency, cleaner cars and alternative fuels. The conservatives" assertion that drilling alone is sufficient is not only environmentally irresponsible but the stuff of fantasy.