Washington —- President Bush plans to make a renewed push today to get Congress to end a long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, echoing a call by GOP presidential candidate John McCain.

Congressional Democrats have opposed lifting the prohibitions on energy development on nearly all federal Outer Continental Shelf waters for more than a quarter-century, including waters along both the East and West coasts.

With oil prices soaring and motorists paying $4 a gallon for gasoline, political pressures have been growing for more domestic oil and gas production.

"The president believes Congress shouldn't waste any more time," White House press secretary Dana Perino said on Tuesday.

"He will explicitly call on Congress to ... pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling," Perino said. "He wants to work with states to determine where offshore drilling should occur."

Bush also will reiterate his call for development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Perino said. McCain has opposed drilling in the refuge, maintaining that the pristine areas in northeastern Alaska should be protected from energy development.

On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. The Arizona senator said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and receive some of the royalty revenue.

Bush has made clear in recent weeks that the drilling moratorium in coastal waters should end to allow for more domestic oil production and help "take the pressure off the price of gasoline."

Democrats, as well as some Republican senators from coastal states, have opposed lifting the drilling prohibitions, fearful that energy development could harm tourism and raise the risk of oil spills on beaches.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn't affect gasoline prices for at least five years.

Despite Bush's concurrence with his position on offshore drilling, McCain on Tuesday sought to distance himself from other parts of the administration's energy policy.

"John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago," said the narrator in a television commercial McCain's campaign released. "Today, he has a realistic plan that will curb greenhouse gas emissions."

And in a speech to an audience of oil industry executives in Houston, McCain implicitly criticized Cheney, who dismissed conservation as a "personal virtue" in 2001. McCain said the next president would have to break with the policies of the current and past administrations to free the United States from its dependence on foreign oil.

"In the face of climate change and other serious challenges, energy conservation is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue," McCain said. "Conservation serves a critical national goal."

McCain also renewed his call for new nuclear power plants in the United States.

Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee relentlessly mocked McCain throughout the day for what they called his flip-flopping and capitulation to the oil industry. They swiftly pointed out, for example, that McCain had supported the ban on offshore drilling during his run for the presidency in 2000.

"John McCain's support of the moratorium on offshore drilling during his first presidential campaign was certainly laudable, but his decision to completely change his position and tell a group of Houston oil executives exactly what they wanted to hear today was the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades," Obama said in a statement.