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Washington (AFP) Sept 30, 2010 The White House on Thursday said it was "outrageous" and "sad" that Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu was holding up the confirmation of its new budget chief to protest an offshore drilling ban. In a rare public rebuke of a fellow Democrat, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it was wrong to delay the confirmation of the new head of the Office and Management and Budget (OMB) when he enjoyed broad bipartisan support. "We're not bargaining the safety of oil drilling away for an appointment that shouldn't be the cause of the type of gridlock that we're used to seeing in Washington," Gibbs said. "I would think people who are concerned about our fiscal picture... would not do the type of things that Senator Landrieu is doing. "I think it is sad, and I think it's outrageous." Landrieu, from Louisiana, on Wednesday said she would maintain her hold on the nomination of Lew, currently a deputy secretary of state, because the moratorium was "ill conceived" and was devastating to the Gulf Coast economy. President Barack Obama ordered a six-month freeze on deepwater offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after a massive BP oil leak from an undersea well. The freeze was annulled by a court in July and promptly reinstated by the government. It expires on November 30. US authorities earlier Thursday announced new safety rules for offshore oil and gas drilling, a move aimed at preventing a recurrence of the disastrous Deepwater Horizon accident earlier this year. Gibbs said on Thursday that the move would bring forward the day when the moratorium could be lifted. "The president does not oppose the offshore exploration for oil ... but the president just believes, after what we witnessed with BP, that we need to do this in a way that is technologically safe, technologically proven." Obama nominated Lew to succeed Peter Orszag as the head of OMB. Lew would be reprising a role as White House budget director that he played for Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, in an administration remembered as a model of fiscal restraint and careful budgeting.
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