Energy: As the administration loosens restrictions on domestic energy development and offshore drilling, a reviled company develops technology to unlock America's vast shale resources. Drill, baby, drill.

We have been among President Obama's harshest critics when it comes to the administration's overly restrictive energy policy, so we were pleasantly surprised to see him announce on Wednesday some light at the end of the pipeline.

Some light, for many restrictions will remain in an energy policy best termed schizophrenic.

Speaking at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Obama announced the welcome news that his administration will let lease sales go forward for oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia. This is the first sale of offshore leases in the Atlantic in two decades.

The Interior Department will also allow seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf — from Vice President Joe Biden's Delaware to within 125 miles of the southern tip of Florida. Hopefully, our drilling will start before the Russians, Chinese and Cubans do.

Some restrictions remain, too many in our view. While allowing an expansion in Alaska's Cook Inlet, the president, joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, announced that proposed leases in Alaska's Bristol Bay would be canceled.

Four pending lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off northern Alaska will be canceled, with those areas reserved for research to determine if they're suitable for further leasing. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve is still prohibited.

Under the administration's plan, the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey northward would remain closed as would the entire Pacific Coast from Mexico to the Canadian border. This includes the coast off energy- and cash-strapped California.

These restrictions are partly environmental and party ideological. Vast offshore areas have been set aside as "critical habitat" for polar bears whose numbers keep increasing.

We worry about spillage onto pristine beaches, even though more oil seeps naturally from the ocean floor. We worry about wildlife, too, even though Alaska's caribou herds thrive and fishing among Louisiana's Gulf rigs is a booming tourist industry.

The administration appears to be embracing economic and energy reality. Our struggling economy needs energy and jobs, and prospects of getting what we need from switch grass and windmills grow dimmer every day.

In his State of the Union address in January, Obama announced that energy independence would require "tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development." This was a tough decision for him and we commend him for, this time, keeping his word.

A recent study by SAC Corp. at the request of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Gas Technology Institute and others showed that if we keep our current restrictions, the U.S. economy would suffer $2.3 trillion in lost opportunity costs over the next two decades, money that would go a long way to reining in runaway deficits and creating economic growth.

This is energy and money we can't afford to do without. Halliburton Co. (yes, that Halliburton) and Schlumberger have announced a technology that allows using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to release oil and gas from shale deposits without the use of chemicals that critics assert damage water supplies.

These chemicals are employed to kill bacteria that rapidly grow in the heated fluids used to fracture shale rock.

The companies have tested a technique that moves water faster than the speed of sound through a cone-shaped vortex that kills the bacteria without the use of chemicals.

Hopefully, Obama's talk isn't like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown again, nor some attempt to buy off the Lindsey Grahams on administration-backed cap-and-trade legislation.

Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer would undo all the good that might come from this announcement.

As it stands now, Obama's announcement is a good, albeit small, first step. Drill, Mr. President, drill.