WASHINGTON -- Maine's governor and members of the state's congressional delegation Wednesday unanimously opposed President Bush's plan to allow expanded offshore oil drilling.

Bush called on Congress to overturn a 27-year-old ban on offshore drilling by July 4. He also urged Congress to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, permit development of oil shale resources and increase domestic oil-refining capacity.

"We need an energy policy that looks to the future for answers, not to the past," Democratic Gov. John Baldacci's spokesman, David Farmer, said in a statement. "We need to cut consumption and develop renewable, clean sources of energy."

The proposal comes with gasoline costing more than $4 a gallon and the cost of home heating oil nearing $5 a gallon. Skyrocketing energy prices have Congress and the White House, as well as both presidential candidates,scrambling for ways to bring short-term relief.

Bush and congressional Republicans have called for developing domestic resources. Democrats have called for investing in renewable energy, ending subsidies for oil companies and enacting a windfall profits tax on oil companies. But plans that could lead to drilling off Maine's coast were met with criticism that it could harm the environment and Maine's fishing industry.

"Any additional drilling should be part of a comprehensive plan that can, and should, be immediately implemented and also must protect our vital fishing resources like Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine," Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe said in a statement. She also called on Bush to convene a national summit to draft a comprehensive energy bill.

Sen. Susan Collins, also a Republican, said she opposes any plan that would allow drilling off Maine's coast.

"It would harm our fishing industry, which is already struggling," Collins said in an interview.

For Democrats, Bush's proposal provided an opening to attack Vice President Dick Cheney and oil companies.

"President Bush and his allies in Congress wasted five years pushing Vice President Cheney's energy policy of massive subsidies for the Big Oil companies," Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, said in a statement. "What did we get from that legislation? The high fuel prices we face today."

Others said the change in policy would be pointless because drilling is already allowed -- but hasn't been done -- in some coastal waters and on some federally owned lands.

"The majority of those resources have not yet been tapped," Rep. Michael Michaud, also a Democrat, said in a statement.

Bush's proposals come a day after Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, called for lifting the ban on offshore drilling and giving states the right to decide whether drilling would be allowed. McCain said he remains opposed to drilling in the Alaskan refuge.

Meanwhile, the Senate has tried twice in the past week to overcome a Republican-led filibuster to vote on a $50 billion tax bill that includes $17 billion to spur investment in alternative and renewable energy sources.

"It is truly ironic that we're addressing this matter on the very day the U.S. Senate is struggling to extend crucial energy tax credits through 2008," Snowe said in her statement. Snowe and Collins joined Democrats Tuesday in voting to end the filibuster on the tax bill and move it to the Senate floor for a vote. In voting to end the filibuster, Collins reversed the vote she cast June 10 on the same bill.

Collins said she voted against ending the filibuster last week because the bill did not include a provision shielding middle-income Americans from the alternative minimum tax.

She said she changed her position after Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., proposed a stand-alone bill two days after the June 10 vote that included the so-called "AMT patch."

Her votes prompted an attack from the Maine Democratic Party, which accused Collins of a "flip-flop" on the issue. Collins is running for a third term against Allen in the Nov. 4 general election.

"Susan Collins has a record of supporting offshore drilling, falling in line yet again with President Bush and John McCain in this outdated thinking," Maine Democratic Party spokeswoman Rebecca Pollard said in a statement Wednesday.

Collins did vote for legislation in 2006 that opened 8.3 million acres to oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The measure easily passed 71-25 and Snowe was the only Republican who opposed it.

"Sen. Collins strongly supports increasing domestic production of energy," said Collins spokeswoman Jen Burita. "By expanding oil and gas production in the Gulf, this bill will make available 1.25 billion barrels of oil and enough natural gas to heat and cool six million homes for 15 years."