Federal legislators have let expire a 26-year-old moratorium against oil exploration and development in most of our nation's coastal waters. The lapse of the ban signals a long-fought victory for Americans.

Despite claims to the contrary, this increased access promises both long- and short-term benefits. More access to domestic energy resources will ultimately bolster our longstanding energy goals: less imports, more economic activity, and more revenue for state and local governments. And the benefits are immediate.

Even before U.S. energy companies begin to actually produce the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil currently locked away in our outer continental shelf (OCS), investors will act. Expanding domestic access will attract more capital to American oil and gas companies, bolstering their position in the global market. More capital means more jobs. Employment opportunity in the energy industry -- ranging from infrastructure development to technological development -- will boom.

However, this good news is not yet actionable even though the OCS ban has expired. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other anti-access lawmakers plan to rehash the issue "with new leadership in the White House next year." And it's unlikely that our oil and gas companies will invest a billion or so dollars to construct and operate an offshore oil well when the government may wipe it out at any moment with the stroke of a pen.

So even though inaction gave us access to our country's rich natural resources, it's going to take a clear plan of action to keep it that way.

In September, the House passed an energy plan sponsored by Pelosi. Her so-called "drilling" legislation actually bans more of America's offshore resources than the previous moratorium. It prohibits drilling in any areas within 50 miles of shore -- the same area that contains the vast majority of the estimated recoverable 18 billion barrels of oil and 76 trillion cubic feet of gas. The first 50 miles are not only the most cost-effective for companies to develop; that region also offers the greatest cash benefit for states that approve drilling.

Due to these and other problems, Pelosi's plan would ensure that at least 63 percent of our available oil would remain off limits. It can only be described as sinister that some propose opening areas to drilling that contain little recoverable energy and banning those that hold the most.

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THIS CONGRESSIONAL CATCH 22 BECOMES EVEN MORE CONFUSING IN LIGHT OF THE UPCOMING ELECTION. Almost 70 percent of voters support increase access to OCS energy resources -- a popular opinion seemingly lost on the handful of legislators still levying populist attacks on "Big Oil." In fact, attacking the integrated oil majors is attacking oil itself, forgetting that consumers cannot put wind or solar or other exotics in their gasoline tanks.

America's oil imports amount to $300 billion, 40 percent of our deficit in trade and services. Constrained by high taxes and development restrictions, U.S. oil companies are losing their competitive edge to rising national oil giants in Brazil, China, Russia, Venezuela and Iran. It is counterproductive for our nation's leaders to penalize the very industry that can not only improve our trade balance sheet but also bolster the balance sheets of the nation's largest public and private pension funds.

Inaction to let the ban expire was a very good thing. Now, the public must watch Congress carefully to ensure that work begins to tap our enormous resources, resources whose time has surely come for beleaguered consumers.

(Robert L. Bradley Jr. is founder and chairman of the Institute for Energy Research in Houston and a senior research fellow at the University of Houston. He previously served as director of public policy analysis at Enron.)

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