Report: Obama open to offshore drilling

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama Friday said he is open to drilling for oil off the Florida coast if it is part of "an overarching package."

In an interview with the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times and Bay News 9, the Illinois senator stopped short of endorsing a bipartisan plan that would allow drilling within 50 miles of Florida's west coast, the newspaper said. He spoke in positive terms of a plan announced Friday by 10 senators to commit billions of dollars to development of renewable sources.

"My attitude is that we can find some sort of compromise," Obama told the newspaper. "If it is part of an overarching package, then I am not going to be rigid in preventing an energy package that goes forward that is really thoughtful and is going to really solve the problem."

The proposal announced Friday by five Democratic and five Republican senators would permit offshore drilling as close as 50 miles from the west coast of Florida. Such drilling is banned under a 2006 law, the Times said.

The compromise would permit drilling 50 miles off the Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia coasts if state lawmakers go along.