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To: Ben Ficklin

You were wrong when you posted that states don’t make money from offshore oil drilling. Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf Act in 1953, which recognized state ownership of the seabed within 3 nautical miles of the shore. State owned oil fields offshore produce 37,400 barrels of oil a day in California.


32 posted on 04/23/2014 7:47:48 AM PDT by SoCal Pubbie
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To: SoCal Pubbie
You were wrong when you posted that states don’t make money from offshore oil drilling. Congress passed the Outer Continental Shelf Act in 1953, which recognized state ownership of the seabed within 3 nautical miles of the shore.

If I am not mistaken, Texas claims the seabed out to the 12-mile limit. Having originally entered the union as an independent entity, the state retained the international 12-mile limit.

33 posted on 04/23/2014 8:02:25 AM PDT by okie01
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To: SoCal Pubbie; okie01
Look closer, I said federal off shore waters.

As for the state waters, the Florida gulf coast and the Texas coast has the exception and you see different numbers on that. The most credible sources I've seen say that they get 3 leagues or about 10 miles. Maybe someone can clear that up.

CA allowed drilling in both state and federal waters but ended it in '65, except those that were grandfathered. LA has drilled out their state waters. MS and AL never allowed drilling in state waters. Alaska allows drilling in state water but their price is so high, nobody does. I don't know about Texas.

There is also an exception to what I said with Royalty Sharing. TX, LA, MS, and AL were given federal royalty sharing in Area 181 in GOMESA 2006. The shared royalty could be used for coastal mitigation and hurricane protection.

Virginia said that they would allow drilling in federal waters if they were given royalty sharing, but they wanted to use the shared royalty for roads, and that has not been approved by Congress.

As for the Submerged land Act, there were others parts to that that you don't mention. Because the offshore drilling in state waters benefitted only the coastal state, the interior states said know. Eisenhower proposed subsequent funding acts to benefit all the states and that was agreed to. The first of those was the Land And Water Conservation Fund(1965) and in the 70s the funding acts for urban parks and historical sights. All three are funded by offshore royalties. The Land and Water Conservation fund is where BLM or the Forest service gets the money to buy more land. The act specifies that a minimum of 60% of those funds go to buying more land. Eisenhower said that these would be funded only when the treasury was flush, but since 2000, all three have been funded 100%. Also under Royalty Sharing, a portion of the shared royalty flows directly into the fund, bypassing Congress and the appropriation process.

There was also a companion act to the Submerged Land Act, called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. This act contains the language the requires the feds to consult with the state before drilling off shore to the state. Which means the feds have to get the OK from the state. Also in the act Congress delegated authority to the Sec Interior to manage the OCS, and since the prez hires and fires the Secretary, this is the basis of the prez's authority over offshore drilling.

34 posted on 04/23/2014 9:53:57 AM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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