Thread: Obama Opens Gulf, Alaska to Offshore Drilling

Obama Opens Gulf, Alaska to Offshore Drilling

Updated: Tuesday, 08 Nov 2011, 12:26 PM MST
Published : Tuesday, 08 Nov 2011, 12:26 PM MST

(NewsCore) - The Obama administration released a five-year offshore drilling plan Tuesday that cautiously opens up more areas in the Gulf of Mexico and looks to expand oil and gas drilling in "frontier areas" off the coast of Alaska.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the US will hold 15 lease sales for the 2012-2017 period – three off Alaska's coast and 12 in the Gulf of Mexico, including two in the eastern Gulf, where the massive BP oil spill occurred last year.

"This five-year program will make available for development more than three-quarters of undiscovered oil and gas resources estimated on the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf), including frontier areas such as the Arctic, where we must proceed cautiously, safely and based on the best science available," Salazar said Tuesday.

The plan has scheduled lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas -- both part of the Arctic Ocean -- late in the five-year period to allow for further scientific study, data collection and longer term planning for the possibility of a spill.

The administration initially had indicated that it might, as many Republicans have urged, open up the Atlantic Coast and more parts of the eastern Gulf to offshore drilling.

The news that the Atlantic Ocean was excluded from the plan left some officials disappointed.

"I am hopeful that the Administration will reconsider the inclusion of Virginia in its five-year lease plan," said the state's Democratic Sen. Jim Webb in a statement.

"Oil and gas exploration within the Virginia Outer Continental Shelf -- if coupled with an equitable formula for sharing revenues between the state and federal governments -- would boost domestic energy production, while benefiting the Commonwealth's economy," he added

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Posted on Monday, 11.14.11

Obama plans new drilling for Alaska, Gulf

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By RUSSELL MCLENDON
Mother Nature Network (mnn.com)

The Obama administration treaded back into turbulent waters on Nov. 8, proposing its first national offshore drilling plan since last year's disastrous Gulf oil spill. Unveiled by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the new proposal would schedule 15 lease sales for 2012 through 2017, including 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and three off Alaska's coast.

The plan is less ambitious than one President Obama presented just before the 2010 Gulf spill began, and as Salazar emphasized last week, it's a "cautious" move intended to boost domestic oil and gas production without sacrificing cultural and environmental treasures along the outer continental shelf (OCS).

"Expanding safe and responsible oil and gas production from the OCS is a key component of our comprehensive energy strategy to grow America's energy economy, and will help us continue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs here at home," Salazar said in a statement. "This five-year program will make available for development more than three-quarters of undiscovered oil and gas resources estimated on the OCS, including frontier areas such as the Arctic, where we must proceed cautiously, safely and based on the best science available."

Environmental groups and Republican lawmakers were both quick to criticize the announcement, albeit for opposite reasons. The House GOP passed a series of bills earlier this year to allow offshore drilling along much of the East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf and Alaska, and the GOP chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee argues the new plan is too restrictive. "No new drilling or new lease sales will occur during President Obama's term in office," Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said to the Associated Press. "The Obama administration's draft plan places some of the most promising energy resources in the world off-limits."

Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke, on the other hand, calls the decision to expand offshore drilling "a reckless gamble we cannot afford." More than 18 months after the 2010 Gulf spill, she says, Congress hasn't passed any laws to protect workers or the environment from such disasters, and the industry has yet to sufficiently improve its safety measures. "This is just another distraction from our clean energy future," Beinecke says in a statement. "We should be moving toward renewable energy sources that can't spill, run out or destroy entire economies and livelihoods. We need to get the road to a clean energy future and stay there."

In addition to expanding offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the new plan would open up parts of Alaska's Cook Inlet, Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea, a prospect that Alaska Wilderness League Director Cindy Shogan says "looks a lot like the fast and loose decision making of the past." Environmental groups have long fought oil and gas development in the Arctic Ocean, arguing the extreme conditions make preventing or cleaning up a spill too difficult. Shell Oil paid the U.S. $2.1 billion for oil leases in the Chukchi Sea in 2008 - the most recent time any U.S. waters in Alaska were leased - but it has yet to drill an exploratory well, due to environmental lawsuits and a delayed federal air-pollution permit.

The Interior Department says its plan "reflects the need for a regionally tailored approach to offshore development," and points out that many of the lease sales - especially those in Alaska - would come late in the 2012-2017 period, allowing time for environmental impact studies to be completed. "A key part of safe and responsible development of our oil and gas resources is recognizing that different environments and communities require different approaches and technologies," Deputy Interior Secretary David J. Hayes said in a statement.

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For more information about the Interior Department's proposed offshore drilling plan, check out this PDF fact sheet, produced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management: http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/Domes ... tsheet.pdf.

Russell McLendon is an eco-journalist who blogs about science, politics and other earthly matters at www.mnn.com/featured-blogs/rmclendon.

2011, Mother Nature Network.

Visit the Mother Nature Network on the World Wide Web at http://www.mnn.com.

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