Matt Osborne thinks it's a clever ruse.
What you’re seeing here is oil smoke to get a climate bill. Offshore drilling has always and forever been an industry bluff — there’s no immediate incentive to expand domestic capacity, especially offshore, and they know it.
So the president might be stripping the Republicans of a talking point, as Ambinder wrote today, and the actual drilling will probably never take place. Only "seismic exploration."
This seems to make sense. Let's hope it's the plan.
Adding... Via Jon Chait, Brad Plumer suggests:
According to the EIA, gas prices are expected to go up quite a bit this summer (probably shooting north of $3/gallon), and the administration may want to step out ahead of the inevitable teeth-gnashing and garment-rending over the issue.