White House Expands Off-Shore Drilling
EmailThe White House today announced that it is opening up new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska, allowing for development of “more than 75 percent of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources on the [Outer Continental Shelf],” according to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
“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.
While the program plans 15 offshore lease sales from 2012 to 2017, it keeps the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards off-limits thus allowing the White House to walk a fine line between pleasing drilling proponents and appeasing environmentalists who oppose increased drilling.
The majority of lease sales are scheduled for areas in the Gulf, “where resource potential and interest is greatest and where infrastructure is most mature,” according to the White House. The program also includes lease sales in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas in the Arctic where efforts will be made to “avoid sensitive environmental resources, including areas accessed by Native Alaskans for subsistence uses.”
Obama, who first announced plans to open drilling in the Gulf and off the Alaskan coast last May, has set a target of reducing U.S. oil imports by a third by 2025 through a comprehensive national energy policy, including increased domestic drilling.
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Too little too late but better than nothing. Now give us the Canadian pipeline.
Posted by: Freedom | November 8, 2011, 2:34 pm 2:34 pm
Too little too late but better than nothing. Now give us the Canadian pipeline.
POSTED BY: FREEDOM | NOVEMBER 8, 2011, 2:34 PM 2:34 PM
Is that what God is going to say when the earth has been totally despoiled by humans?
Posted by: Judy | November 8, 2011, 2:49 pm 2:49 pm
There will be no drilling where any rich people live.
Posted by: Susan | November 8, 2011, 3:50 pm 3:50 pm
There will be no drilling where anybody lives. Do poor or rich people live in Arctic Seas or the middle of the Gulf ?
Posted by: Rude | November 8, 2011, 4:11 pm 4:11 pm
ride your bicycle, create electricity by using potatos and zinc and copper strips for low voltage lighting, give up you TV’s, (there’s nothing good on anyway), we do not need oil or windturbines
Obama, is not eco friendly…vote him OUT, vote Nader2012
Posted by: Save the Birds | November 8, 2011, 4:12 pm 4:12 pm
“avoid sensitive environmental resources, including areas accessed by Native Alaskans for subsistence uses.”
What an insulting phrase ‘subsistence uses’. It’s actually for sustainable existence uses.
Posted by: Jude | November 8, 2011, 4:37 pm 4:37 pm
Almost everything we use is made with oil power or from oil as a raw material – please consume more and waste as much as you can.
Posted by: Danny | November 8, 2011, 4:40 pm 4:40 pm
Major off-shore oil drilling platform owners remain unconvinced, saying that the business environment is more stable in freakin’ Africa than under the oBama administration which is why they moved their drilling equipment there after the oBama drilling moratorium.
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 7:33 pm 7:33 pm
“saying that the business environment is more stable in freakin’ Africa than under the oBama administration”
Yeah. if you spill a few million gallons of oil into the water off the coast of Africa who is going to complain as much?
Posted by: numbers | November 8, 2011, 8:36 pm 8:36 pm
numbers wrote:”Yeah. if you spill a few million gallons of oil into the water off the coast of Africa who is going to complain as much?”
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The day you give up forever your car and take to a bicycle or donkey for transportation then your point is valid. The real reason the oBama administration opposes the oil drilling industry is that they are not unionized….no money for the DEMOCRATS campaign coffers…..so no support for their plight.
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 9:14 pm 9:14 pm
“The day you give up forever your car and take to a bicycle or donkey for transportation then your point is valid”
Wrong. Despite what the oil companies might say we know we can force them to drill for oil safely if we choose to, and that any extra cost will be less than environmental destruction resulting from letting them cut corners. We won’t have to give up all our cars.
“so no support for their plight”
The “plight” of oil companies, who make hundreds of billions of dollars….that’s got to be one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Did Rush come up with that one?
Posted by: numbers | November 8, 2011, 9:30 pm 9:30 pm
numbers wrote:”Wrong. Despite what the oil companies might say we know we can force them to drill for oil safely if we choose to, and that any extra cost will be less than environmental destruction resulting from letting them cut corners. We won’t have to give up all our cars.”
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Oil companies drill for oil safely every day. Lets shut down the entire car industry because one car wreck caused a gas spill in a busy intersection. Happens every day…. you just want to quibble about the scale.
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“The “plight” of oil companies, who make hundreds of billions of dollars….”
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Who said the plight of oil companies…you instantly turn to your class warfare tactics because someone makes hundreds of billions of dollars supporting thousands of jobs. Oil drilling companies and oil companies are not necessarily the same… but then DEMOCRATS don’t understand how this stuff works anyways so why expect you to understand the difference. The federal government makes hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxes imposed on this industry…. lets relieve them of this “plight” as well…. agree?
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 9:50 pm 9:50 pm
That is the whole essence of the right-wing fairy tale…..that deregulating business and industry, and letting them police themselves, take shortcuts and big risks, will save the public money. It’s a scam, because much of the costs of their failures will be dumped on the public.
Posted by: numbers | November 8, 2011, 9:52 pm 9:52 pm
numbers wrote:”It’s a scam, because much of the costs of their failures will be dumped on the public.”
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Franklin Raines, George Kaiser, and a whole host of oBama crony capitalists agree with you 100%.
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 10:03 pm 10:03 pm
And here I thought the standard line was Obama and his administration is anti-business and anti-capitalist. Still haven’t worked out the contradictions yet eh?
Posted by: numbers | November 8, 2011, 10:16 pm 10:16 pm
numbers wrote:”And here I thought the standard line was Obama and his administration is anti-business and anti-capitalist. ”
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You have it right…. the only time oBama and his administration support business and capitalists is if they support and donate to his campaign. Nancy Pelosi in a moment of unguarded clarity said it all…. Boeing unionized plant in Washington? Good! Boeing non-unionized plant in South Carolina? BAD! In fact she would use the full force of the federal government to shut it down. Wow! If the DEMOCRATS have not figured out that full blown left-wing radicals have taken over their party, they are willfully ignorant or totally supportive. Either one is dangerous for the future of this country.
Posted by: Michelle Shu Jas | November 8, 2011, 10:37 pm 10:37 pm
I think it’s much simpler and more sensible to just say there are wealthy people who agree with Obama without all the melodrama…and those who apparently agree include all the folks on Wall st who are donating heavily to the Obama reelection effort because they know the Republican plan of austerity and big spending cuts is going to crush the life out of any hope for an economic recovery anytime soon….and that’s just plain bad for business.
Posted by: numbers | November 8, 2011, 10:53 pm 10:53 pm
Wow, Obama sure is late to this party.
If, “oil and gas production” is “safe and responsible” then why keep “the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards off-limits”?
This administration uses it’s energy policy as a political tool instead of as a means to get us energy independent.
President Obama is not trustable.
Posted by: Noz | November 9, 2011, 8:05 am 8:05 am