Does the Gas Price Reduction Act promote conservation?

In a radio ad airing this week, the small-government group Americans for Prosperity praises U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for cosponsoring a bill to lift a ban on offshore oil exploration. It says the bill "continues to promote conservation."

The bill would allow offshore drilling, oil shale drilling in three Western states, better regulation of oil futures trading and loans for battery makers. 

Americans for Prosperity spokesman Dallas Woodhouse noted that the bill calls for a percentage of the revenue from offshore drilling to go to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The fund was created by Congress in 1965 to use money from offshore oil and gas leases to buy land for state open space projects and to expand national parks and forests.

The bill also calls for states permitting offshore drilling to receive a percentage of the federal revenue to spend on projects mitigating damage to marine and wildlife areas. 

In the context of the ad, "conservation" could also be taken to mean energy conservation.

To that end, Woodhouse noted that the ad directs the U.S. Department of Energy to spend $100 million and make $250 million in loans to promote battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles.