President Bush on Monday lifted an executive order barring offshore oil and gas drilling that protects nearly 90 percent of the U.S. coastline.

The announcement alone does not open U.S. coasts to energy exploration — the ban, also written into law, must be lifted by Congress, where numerous efforts to do so have failed. But it marks the first time in the 26-year history of the ban that a president has taken the lead in trying to lift it.

“Now the ball is squarely in Congress’s court,” Bush said at the White House.

Expanding offshore drilling has long been a tenet of Republican energy policy, but the GOP has never managed to lift the ban — even in Republican-controlled Congresses.

But Republicans and the oil industry say Monday’s announcement, in combination with record-high gasoline prices and new polls showing growing public support for drilling, adds weight to their pressure to lift the ban.

Democrats are increasingly aware of that pressure, but the party’s congressional leaders still oppose lifting the ban. They argue that new drilling on U.S. coasts would pose too great an environmental threat. They also cite studies that show whatever new oil would be found would not be available for many years, and would make little more than a tiny dent in U.S. oil supplies and prices.

Democratic leadership aides say the White House move makes no difference on the drilling equation in Congress. While a handful of Democrats have long voted with Republicans on energy and oil issues, aides say they do not see a shift from any longtime opponents of drilling.

“It’s symbolic,” said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., of the Bush announcement. “If the president wanted to take a real action, he could release a small amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which would have an effect in a matter of days, instead of years.”

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