“It ought to be clear to everybody that this country needs to build more refining capacity to be able to deal with the issues of tight supply,” said Bush.

While existing refineries have expanded over the years, the president pointed out that a new refinery has not been built in the United States since the 1970s. The president said he will work with Congress to pass a reasonable law that allows current refineries to expand their oil processing capacity and also encourages building new refineries.

Recent discussions in Congress to open new areas to exploration and drilling quickly brought criticism from some environmental sympathizers, who claim that conservation and alternative technologies could better replace or greatly reduce U.S. dependency on crude oil products.

According to the U.S. Department of Interior, 108 low-producing oil and natural gas platforms were destroyed and 53 others were damaged. It could take many months to bring them back online.