Lansing, Mich. (AP) Barack Obama's new energy proposal includes two significant reversals of past positions.

He's steadfastly fought he idea of limited new offshore drilling and has been against tapping the nation's emergency oil stockpile to lower gas prices.

But now he's calling for the government to sell 70 million barrels of oil from the stockpile, saying it would have a short-term positive impact. That accounts for almost 10 percent of the stockpile.

Obama tells reporters he won't pretend this will have any long-term impact on high gas prices.

But he argues the government hasn't done anything about energy for three decades, and that John McCain has been “part of that failure.”