Offshore Drilling Proposal Moves Forward
Posted on: Thursday, 22 January 2009, 07:45 CST
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of the Interior said Tuesday that the Obama administration will move forward with a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, a Reuters report said on Wednesday.
Shortly after taking his oath of office on Tuesday, President Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to suspend pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming administration personnel.
However, Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery said the department had been notified by the White House that it can move ahead with a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Pacific and Atlantic waters for oil and natural gas drilling.
The preliminary proposal calls for the authorization of 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts off the coasts of Alaska and California and along the east coast.
The department unveiled the plan last week, and said it would provide the incoming administration with the option to start leasing recently opened areas in 2010, two years before the current leasing plan is set to expire.
On Wednesday, the department issued a 60-day public request for comment on the plan. The Obama administration will then have to decide whether to proceed with an official proposal, make changes or abandon the plan altogether.
Both congressional and presidential bans on drilling in most U.S. waters ended last year.
The department estimates that the Outer Continental Shelf holds 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that have yet to be discovered. Other U.S. offshore areas that have not been explored in 25 years could contain even more.
The Reuters report quoted Vickery as saying that the department's plan to develop oil shale fields in the western U.S. would continue.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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