Liberal House Democrats on Wednesday vowed to get a new offshore drilling moratorium enacted early next year, a day after learning they’d lost this year’s battle over an issue that dominated congressional politics for most of the summer.

In a 370-58 vote, the House on Wednesday approved a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government operating. The CR does not include a renewal of the ban on offshore drilling, which has been in place for over 20 years.

Capps and others, including Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), were clearly hoping an Obama administration would be sympathetic to their argument against a significant amount of new offshore drilling and would extend the executive moratorium that President Bush lifted over the summer.

Democrats had offered a compromise that would replace the blanket moratorium with a 50-mile ban followed by a 50-to-100-mile “opt-in” for individual states that could take care of the moratorium question in the omnibus funding bill.

Democrats like Capps opposed the compromise language for allowing too much drilling.

But after a draft Democratic Continuing Resolution containing the 50-mile ban and “opt-in” language circulated around the Capitol on Monday, Republicans blasted the majority for again refusing to open up as much land as possible to exploration.

The next day, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said that Congress had effectively lost a veto showdown with the White House over the drilling moratorium, and announced that the CR would not contain any language extending the moratorium, effectively removing all drilling restrictions beyond three miles offshore beginning Oct. 1.

“The White House made it clear that that was an absolute non-starter,” Obey said Tuesday night. “So that will mean, quite frankly, that the next administration will determine what the nation’s offshore drilling policy is.”

But on Wednesday, Democrats were rethinking that position.

Asked whether the moratorium will resurface as an issue in the 111th Congress, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said: “I expect it will be, and I expect that many of us will be pushing for a moratorium to [protect] our beautiful coastlines where it would be inappropriate to set up oil drilling.”

House Republicans, who on Wednesday had declared victory on an issue that had gotten them significant political mileage, said they were not shocked to learn of the Democrats’ plans.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled another bait-and-switch on the American people,” said GOP conference Chairman Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.).

Coastal Democrats most opposed to offshore drilling had mixed reactions on what the next few months will look like without any drilling prohibitions beyond three miles offshore.

Even with the congressional ban lifted, the earliest that any leases would be approved is July 2010.

According to Erik Milito, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute (API), the administration must fulfill provisions of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) before any drilling can begin.