Not anymore.

Rising gasoline prices and Middle East turmoil have fueled a push in Congress to lift the 25-year federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling. The House last month passed a sweeping bill that would force the South Carolina legislature and those of other Atlantic states to vote against drilling in order to prevent it 50 or more miles offshore. The Senate approved a more restrictive measure Tuesday, expanding oil and natural gas drilling only in the Gulf of Mexico.

A conference committee will try to bridge the bills' vast differences after lawmakers return to Washington next month from their summer break.

Rep. Henry Brown, a third-term Republican whose congressional district hugs 175 miles of coastline from Myrtle Beach to Charleston, said the nation faces an energy crisis that must be met.

"Tourism is a big factor to us, but I'm telling you -- if we don't solve the energy problem and gasoline gets to be five dollars a gallon, then nobody's going to come to our beaches," he said in an interview.

That kind of talk makes some folks back home nervous.

"With 2,000 miles of coastline along the Eastern seaboard, we're naturally a little protective about our 60 miles that produce thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in tourism revenue," said Brad Dean, head of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Brown and South Carolina's three other Republican congressmen -- Joe Wilson, Gresham Barrett and Bob Inglis -- voted for the House drilling bill; Democrats John Spratt and James Clyburn voted against it. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint voted for the more restrictive Senate measure.

The split among South Carolina's political leaders is not entirely partisan: Republican Gov. Mark Sanford strongly opposes the House bill, saying it dilutes coastal states' ability to control drilling.

"Given the importance of our tourism industry and the uniqueness of our ecosystem, we don't believe these decisions should be made in Washington," Sanford wrote in a June 29 letter to Spratt. "This bill does not adequately protect the state against potential harmful activities."

Brown and Wilson's support of the House measure has fueled their opponents' campaigns for the November elections.

Brown said he supports drilling for natural gas and has not made up his mind about oil; Wilson also backs natural gas exploration but is firmly against oil drilling.

"Keeping in mind environmental concerns, we should drill," Wilson said. "Equally important, the bill that I voted for would provide for the state, not the federal government, to determine if drilling is to take place."

Graham and DeMint say they back natural gas exploration, but not oil drilling, off the South Carolina coast as long as it takes place far enough away from the beach and has adequate safeguards.

Clyburn, a seventh-term Democrat, is not even willing to concede that natural gas exploration is safe.

"It would be myopic to start doing things that could pose a threat to tourism," he said. "... We no longer have textiles or tobacco as economic staples. Tourism is our number one industry, and our coastline is very important to that industry."

Clyburn and Spratt say they likely will support the final version of the drilling bill if it is close the Senate's original restrictive measure, which expands drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico but doesn't lift the federal moratorium elsewhere.

Senate leaders have told their House counterparts that they will block a broader lifting of the drilling ban. But such tough stances often soften once a major piece of legislation goes to the conference committee with lawmakers from both chambers.

Once more, Graham is poised to play a mediating role on a controversial issue.

Graham is open to natural gas exploration off South Carolina, but he adds, "I don't think there's enough money that would entice me to put the coast of South Carolina at risk."