McCain Election Pandering

You've seen the headlines today - McCain, Bush, and Gingrich are organizing a push to drill for oil along our coastlines and lift a 27 year moratorium. They seem to be taking advantage of high gas prices to help their friends in big oil make even more money. Opening up our coastline to drilling will take up to 10 years before the first drop of oil would reach your local gas stations and it would last for less than 10 years - yet the devastation it will cause is hardly worth the price.

Also, would someone please explain to me how this will serve to lower the cost of gasoline - unless he plans to nationalize oil industry, I just don't see how this would work.