House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday maintained a hard-line stance against offshore drilling and said GOP efforts on the floor to push her toward a vote was “war dance of the hand maidens of the oil companies.”

Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she would play no part in helping a measure “that won’t work and mislead the American people as to thinking it’s going to reduce the price at the pump.”

The Speaker conceded that drilling could be part of a “larger energy package,” a sentiment that was voiced earlier this week by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

“We have a planet to save. We have an economy to grow,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”. “And we can do that if we keep our balance in all of this and not just say but for drilling in unprotected and these protected areas offshore, we would have lower gas prices.”

Pelosi was pushed repeatedly in the interview to explain why she would not allow a vote on additional drilling. 

The Speaker noted that there is bipartisan support to open the strategic petroleum reserve, force oil companies to use existing land leases for exploration and to curb speculation.

She added that Republicans would have to “use their imagination as to how they can get a vote, and they may get a vote,” on more drilling.

“My flagship issue as speaker of the House in this 110th Congress has been to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and to reverse global warming,” Pelosi said. “I’m not giving the gavel away to a tactic that will do neither of those things, that supports big oil at the cost and the expense of the consumer.”