OBAMA TO UNVEIL OFFSHORE DRILLING PLANS FOR OIL, NATURAL GAS - latimes.com
The proposal through 2017 will open new areas of the mid-Atlantic region, Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico for production but prohibit moves off California, Oregon and Washington.
President Obama will announce new plans to drill for oil and natural gas off America's coasts Wednesday but will rule out drilling off California, Oregon and Washington state through 2017, administration officials say.
Obama's plans will include opening new areas of coastal Virginia and other parts of the mid-Atlantic region, Alaska and the eastern Gulf of Mexico for drilling. But officials say the president will block drilling in Alaska's Bristol Bay, where Bush administration drilling plans in 2007 angered environmentalists.
According to administration officials, the plan would:
Eventually open two-thirds of the eastern Gulf's oil and gas resources
for drilling.
Proceed with drilling off Virginia, provided the project clears
environmental and military reviews.
Expand drilling off the mid- and south-Atlantic coasts.
Study the viability of drilling in Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi seas --
areas hotly defended by environmentalists -- but issue no new drilling
leases in either sea before 2013.
The eastern Gulf of Mexico leases hinge on Congress lifting a moratorium
on drilling there. Even if that happens, administration officials said
Obama's plan included no drilling within 125 miles of the Florida
coastline.
The announcement, scheduled for an energy security event at Joint Base
Andrews Naval Air Facility, will be Obama's first major policy step into
the politically charged area of offshore drilling.
The president's drilling plans run through 2017. The likely scope and
details of the proposals represent compromises that risk angering energy
companies and environmentalists alike.
The announcement will come in the run-up to summer driving season, as
gasoline prices have begun a national march toward $3 a gallon, and
beyond that in California.
The administration is pushing expanded offshore exploration as a
bargaining chip in its attempts to enact sweeping legislation to curb
oil imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Energy companies and conservatives have clamored for increased drilling
since gasoline prices spiked during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Environmentalists contend that more drilling could lead to oil spills
and the destruction of fragile ecosystems.
While campaigning for the White House, Obama called for increased,
targeted drilling. In his State of the Union address in January, he said
energy security and job creation require "making tough decisions about
opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development."
But his administration has come under heavy criticism from Republicans,
who accuse it of dragging its feet on offshore exploration. Some in the
GOP accuse Obama of a de-facto moratorium on new drilling.
Shortly after Obama took office, his Interior Department retracted a
Bush administration proposal for drilling from 2012 to 2017. Later, a
court invalidated portions of the nation's existing drilling plan.
Wednesday's announcement will set out a new 2012-17 proposal as well as
more immediate plans for lease sales.
Administration officials said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, as part of
Obama's new drilling plan, will scrap a planned lease sale for Bristol
Bay. Obama will announce that he is reverting to the policies of
Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who both blocked drilling
of any kind in the bay.
Bristol Bay is a highly productive fishery and part of a Bering Sea
region that supplies 40% of the nation's seafood. Congress blocked
drilling there after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. President
George W. Bush removed the last impediments to drilling in the bay in
2007 and had scheduled a drilling lease sale there in 2011.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opposes more offshore
drilling, his spokesman said, but supports a proposal to allow expanded
drilling off existing platforms for a set period of time. After the
allotted time, the platforms would be removed.
Other governors, including Republican Bob McDonnell of Virginia, have
pushed Obama to allow more drilling off their coasts.
Pending legislation could give state officials a stronger hand in those
decisions. The crafters of a Senate energy and climate bill are mulling
over a provision that would allow states to choose whether to open
close-in offshore areas for drilling.
jtankersley@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Tribune Interactive
Tags: DRILLING, FOR, GAS, NATURAL, OBAMA, OFFSHORE, OIL, PLANS, TO, UNVEIL
Views: 92
Replies are closed for this discussion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Spring Branch,mineral owner on -
Skip, are you suggesting that the environmentalists won't file lawsuits in an effort to tie it up in the courts for years?
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Permalink Reply by Kat Bloomfield on
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And Boner, i mean boehner, is a beacon of enlightenment and progress.
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Permalink Reply by Dorcheated A1 on
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Caliente,
With the fine tuning you get from The Huffington Post, and The New York Times. Your indoctrination, shoot! I mean your qualifications as the liberal lighthouse are unmatched. -
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Difference between you and me? I don't "get"; I give.
You gotta admit; Boehner is a never-ending source of entertainment. Give me Jim Baker any day. Let's see, what did Jim Baker say about Obama?!!! Look it up. Oh, never mind: just read this: " Get Breaking News Alerts
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Comments 340 Former H.W. Bush Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff James Baker conveyed support for "the overwhelming majority of Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda" in an interview last Wednesday night, the Texas Tribune reports.
In a lengthy interview with Evan Smith, founder of the Texas Tribune, Baker spoke on a variety of foreign affairs topics, including the border dynamic between Mexico and the Southwestern United States, the importance of the Middle East peace process, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." -
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Permalink Reply by Dorcheated A1 on
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Difference between you and me? I don't "get"; I give.
Caliente
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You most certainly do give my friend, and you give a lot. You give a lot of people endless headaches with your political bombs. Your vast knowlege of the Oil & Gas business, and the sound professional advice you give people is almost unmatched. Your political views, well, that's another story. I'd still eat B-B-Q with you though.lol -
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LOL! BBQ is the universal uniter. perhaps if those douchebags that run our country so that it operates to grease the skids of lobbyists and industry ate more BBQ together, our political arena wouldn't be just a bad copy of a Jerry Springer show
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Permalink Reply by Dorcheated A1 on
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He Yoder,
I love this line....Leave the petty politics at home with your love ones. The foxhole ain't 'bout childish name calling or tea parties or spitting on Congressmen. War is about survival.
Gives you a chance to get your little dig in my friend. I would say stay out of the Star Wars bars for awhile, those intergalactic cocktails you’ve been drinking are disrupting your thought process.
Yours truly Chewbacca, -
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Permalink Reply by Kevin Smith on
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So the right hand allows the many-year offshore environmental wars to begin and actually looks like a moderate to some. What's the left hand doing? Probably sending the EPA out to shut down shale fracing.
I can not believe that Obama would allow himself to be seen as a friend to big oil. There's a big wink in this. So get ready to be slapped really hard somewhere else. Interior Secretary Salazar has many ways of holding this up indefinitely. And of course this is an excuse to be given when the price of gas goes up for the summer driving season. It's a win-win situation for Obama and his comrades in tight November races.
My cynical side suggests that this is a great way to prime the pump for the leftist fundraising industry. Almost every environmental/social justice/human rights group is mostly a fundraising organization. They have a great business model. They raise money from outraged citizens. Their product is usually "awareness," so they put up a web page and generate press coverage for their pet cause. Which outrages more citizens. And the cycle continues like that until the story no longer outrages a sufficient number of concerned people with truly disposable income.
The man-made global warming story is getting tired and seems to have holes forming at its poles and everywhere else. I'd guess that cash flows at environmental organizations are getting tight and that their ad agencies would like their invoices paid soon. Without George W. Bush to use as a poster boy for every imaginable fundraising cause, things are pretty bleak. How outraged can concerned citizens get when the government is run totally by concerned Democrats?
This announcement will probably probably do more for the environmental fundraisers than it ever does for oil and gas production. They have a new tool to outrage their base of givers. So while you may hear strong language in the press from environmental groups on this issue, remember that they are no doubt very, very happy to have a new story with which to outrage people. -
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