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The last of the four public meetings Interior Sec. Salazar convened to receive input about the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas leasing program was held Thursday in San Francisco. Big opponent, Barbara Boxer’s emotional commentary was based on the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. Sen. Boxer failed to realize that in four decades American ingenuity has developed technologies that would prevent such a spill today.

The Washington Federal Appeals Court ruled that the Bush administration did not properly study the environmental impact of expanding oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast and canceled the program aimed at finding new reserves. “The Bush Administration’s contention that the needs of humans outweigh the needs of aquatic life off the Alaskan coast is unsubstantiated,” wrote Judge Terra Greene for the court. “Up to this point, humans have thrived without accessing these oil resources. This presents a prima facie case that they will continue to do so without extracting the oil.” The court instructed the Interior Department to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Bush administration did not properly study the environmental impact of expanding oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast and canceled a program to find new reserves. A three-judge panel in Washington found that the Bush-era Interior Department failed to consider the effect on the environment and marine life before it began the process in August 2005 to expand an oil and gas leasing program in the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi seas. The appeals court ordered the department, now run by President Barack Obama's appointee Ken Salazar, to analyze...

I don't think that anyone wants to destroy the US Coastline at ANY Cost. Even those who want use to exploit our energy resources. The fact is Offshore drilling technology has gotten much easier on the environment. Scientists know two things, first all the estimates of reserves on the US continental shelf are probably UNDERSTATED, after all its been thirty years since they have been allowed to take a really good look with the most modern technology. The other thing that scientists know (and that you rarely hear about from the MSM is that when there are leakages that cause...

The ban on offshore oil drilling that expired last September will be restored by “any means necessary,” Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who serves on both the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, told CNSNews.com on Friday. Inslee, who participated in a conference entitled "Planning for a Secure Energy Future” sponsored by the Washington Post, also recommended a ban on future drilling in the arctic, where he says there is a “gold rush” for oil uncovered by melting ice caps. But Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who serves on the House Select Committee on Energy...

Republicans introduced in both the House and the Senate yesterday a bill entitled the No Cost Stimulus Act of 2009. This breathtakingly simple energy stimulus bill introduced by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) would accelerate offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf and in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and force the government to streamline the environmental and regulatory burdens that could otherwise block energy development for years. At a press conference yesterday, Vitter and Bishop explained that this bill would be a literal “threefer”: it creates tens of thousands of jobs, helps reduce dependency on foreign...

Sens. Hutchison, Murkowski, Bond Urge White House to Expedite Offshore Oil and Gas Development Domestic Sources will Relieve Stress on Americans, Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil March 2, 2009 WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Texas’ senior Senator, along with Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Kit Bond (R-MO) today led a Republican effort, urging the White House to tap new domestic energy sources and expeditiously complete the Administration’s five-year plan for offshore oil and gas development. Sens. Hutchison, Murkowski, and Bond were joined on the letter by 32 of their Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate.            “American...

Top executives from some of the nation’s biggest oil companies on Wednesday pleaded with Congress to expand 
offshore drilling to help wean the U.S. off foreign energy sources and spur new jobs. Gary Luquette, the president of Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co., said new offshore drilling is essential to meet growing energy demands in the U.S. “Today’s decisions should help us prepare for — not jeopardize — tomorrow’s economic growth,” Luquette told the House Natural Resources Committee. “To prepare for tomorrow’s economic growth and meet our nation’s increasing long-term energy demand, we need … more conservation, we need...

GAS AND OIL PRODUCERS ARE GETTING A CASE OF INDIGESTION that no anti-acid can cure. They fear that President Obama will break his campaign promise to allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the outer continental shelf, arguably jeopardizing U.S. energy security. Few are prepared to call our president "Barack the Bamboozler." Most people still take him at his word, given in his acceptance speech in Denver last August, that offshore drilling, especially for natural gas, is an important part of his administration's overall plan for making the nation energy-independent. On Sept. 23, the truth will out. ... Last...

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Tuesday overturned another Bush-era energy policy, announcing it was setting aside a draft plan to allow drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. "To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in a statement. Environmentalists and some tourism-dependent coastal states oppose the drilling, citing the potential for spills and urging an emphasis on renewable energy instead. Energy companies counter that drilling has become safer over the years and that...

This week, Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA seized control of an offshore drilling rig owned by Dallas-based Ensco International. It was an audacious move that reflects the slow-motion breakdown of one of the world's biggest state-owned oil companies. PDVSA subsidiary Petrosucre is in arrears on $35.5 million it owes Ensco for drilling services; the Ensco 69 rig is under contract through August 2010 at a rate of $185,000 a day. Ensco is but one of many contractors waiting to get paid. As its revenues plunged with the price of crude, PDVSA has, in recent months, reportedly built up $8 billion...

An agreement paving the way for the first oil drilling off the California coast in nearly 40 years has run into unexpected opposition that may sink it altogether Thursday. snip The three-member State Lands Commission has the power to scuttle the deal Thursday. Already the chairman, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, has said he'll vote against it. The other two members - state controller John Chiang and state finance director Michael Genest - have not disclosed their intentions but Genest is leaning for it and Chiang against, setting up the possibility the plan could die on a 2-1 vote.

An agreement paving the way for the first oil drilling off the California coast in nearly 40 years has run into unexpected opposition that may sink it altogether Thursday. snip The three-member State Lands Commission has the power to scuttle the deal Thursday. Already the chairman, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, has said he'll vote against it. The other two members - state controller John Chiang and state finance director Michael Genest - have not disclosed their intentions but Genest is leaning for it and Chiang against, setting up the possibility the plan could die on a 2-1 vote.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday the expansion of offshore oil drilling should be worked out with Congress as part of a broad energy blueprint and not independent action by his department. In an interview with The Associated Press, Salazar indicated the drilling plan the Bush administration left on his desk likely will be scrapped. It would open the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts for drilling. Salazar declined to single out any waters considered automatically off limits to oil exploration. "There are places that are appropriate for exploration and development and there are places that are not,"...

Talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh and Democratic firebrand Rahm Emanuel agree on one thing: Barack Obama’s presidency could alter America for decades. Emanuel, the new White House chief of staff, recently told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the financial meltdown provides an opportunity “to do things that Americans have pushed off for years.” Limbaugh offered the contrary view, with this warning: “We're about to see an encroachment by the left that will take a generation to roll back.” Here are a “dirty dozen” changes Team Obama is most likely to enact. Ratings Key [1 to 10 scale]: Probability Likelihood that the measure...

The Bush administration has taken an initial step toward allowing oil and gas companies to explore for energy reserves off the coast of Maine and elsewhere in the North Atlantic. Officials stressed, however, that many more steps, including environmental impact studies, would need to be completed before any drilling could begin in New England waters. And any plan to open Maine’s coastal waters to oil and gas exploration would face stiff opposition from many regional policy makers. On Friday, the Minerals Management Service released a draft plan that proposes 31 oil and gas lease sales in areas of the nation’s...

The National Ocean Industries Association and seven other industry trade groups issued a statement supporting the US Mineral Management Service's formal solicitation of comments about leasing off Virginia. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and other state officials indicated an interest in limited development off Virginia's coast. For decades, federal law limited Outer Continental Shelf leasing to parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The public comment period for initial information gathering for a proposed OCS Shelf Lease Sale 220 ended Jan. 13. The comment period had been extended 15 days from an initial deadline of Dec. 29, 2008. The...

President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of the interior nominee, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), said he will consider restoring parts of an expired federal ban on offshore oil drilling, but told CNSNews.com that he has “no idea” how much of the drilling restrictions should be reimposed.

Environmental activists and prominent Virginia Democrats banded together Tuesday to tell the federal government to abandon plans to open the state's coastline to oil and natural gas drilling by the end of 2011. Congress allowed a ban on offshore drilling to expire at the end of September, and the U.S. Department of the Interior has been collecting feedback from citizens, elected officials and environmental groups on plans to open up tracts off the state's coastline in the next three years. As the comment period ended Tuesday, a handful of conservation groups sent letters to the federal Minerals Management Service saying...

The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay. Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth of the Russian River, as well as off Malibu, Santa Monica...

Shell Oil has canceled its drilling and other exploration plans for next year in the Beaufort Sea while it focuses on court challenges to its offshore plan. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that federal regulators improperly granted Shell permission to drill in the Beaufort. The court ordered the Minerals Management Service to reconsider how exploratory drilling would affect wildlife and Inupiat Eskimo subsistence hunting and fishing. Shell said the agency completely analyzed the exploratory plan and correctly found that it would have minimal impact on marine mammals and subsistence activities. Shell...

Off the coast of Louisiana lie some of the world's most unusual reefs. We're not talking about coral or shell reefs, but the steel-legged kind that the oil companies constructed throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. No doubt the engineers of these structures gave little thought at the time of their development on how an important food chain would result due to these rig installations. As a result of this, many fish gather under and near the leg structures of these steel reefs which are found in waters under ten feet to over a thousand feet in depth....

A video of fish swimming around underneath an oil rig. You can clearly see the piping and frameworks that comprises the underpinnings. You can see the rig in the background when they stand in their boats to show off the fish they caught. This video is useful for when the oil drilling debate comes back.

Shell Oil Company has set a world water depth record in drilling and completing a subsea well 9,356 feet (1.77 miles) below the water's surface in the Silvertip Field at the Perdido Development project, approximately 200 miles from Houston in the Gulf of Mexico. Russ Ford, Shell's technology vice president for the Americas said, "Pressing into ever deeper waters shows that the ultra deep is a new frontier for the critical resources to meet the world’s future energy needs. This achievement represents a leap forward in applying sophisticated technologies in rugged sea floor terrain with a harsh environment of very...

Where our line of sight hits the horizon is the distance from our boat to the horizon. A small boat first coming into view is assumed to be at that distance. In the picture above, the sailor cannot see the island's palm trees. If an object, such as a large ship or a palm tree on an island, sticks up well above the water, we can see it from a further distance. Here is how we can calculate how far we can see from a boat on the sea. First let's assume that we are sitting in the cockpit of...

Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island. Russian oil companies have "concrete projects" for drilling in Cuba's part of the gulf, said Mijail Kamynin, Russia's ambassador to Cuba, to the state-run business magazine Opciones.

On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, Minerals Management Service (MMS) Director Randall Luthi will announce a significant first step in the multi-step leasing process for offshore Virginia, a step that will involve full public involvement and begin the work for an environmental analysis. Luthi will discuss the announcement in a news media teleconference beginning at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Who: Randall Luthi, Director of the Minerals Management Service What: Announcement of a first step in leasing process for offshore Virginia When: Wednesday, November 12, 2008: 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time; 10 a.m. Central Standard Time; 9 a.m. Mountain Standard Time;...

STAVANGER, Norway -- Industries world-wide are slashing costs and laying off workers. But one sector continues to recruit employees aggressively, dangling before them six-figure salaries, signing bonuses and job-training programs. Multinational oil companies are grappling with a shortage of specialized labor for offshore rigs that promises to get worse. Drillers plan to erect 180 new offshore rigs over the next three years -- adding to the current total of 640 -- spanning the globe from the Vietnamese coast and the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil. Every new offshore drilling operation requires an average of 200 workers,...

Pollution or prosperity: Which will offshore drilling bring to South Carolina?By JIM FABER Published Sunday, October 12, 2008 It's a thorny question: Can a state economy based largely on tourism afford to have oil and natural gas drilling offshore? The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask. Some say it could threaten the natural beauty of the beaches that bring so many people to South Carolina and Hilton Head Island. Others say it could bring in thousands of high-paying jobs to a state struggling with a high unemployment rate and lessen dependence on foreign oil. **SNIP** THE CASE FOR...

Calls for greater education funding are a staple of Democratic campaigns. The latest is an advertisement by Senator Obama accusing Senator John McCain of "taking money away from public schools" to give to special interests. Yet in truth, when it comes to one issue that's hitting schools hard—rising energy costs—it’s Democrats who don't seem so concerned about schools’ stretched budgets. This summer, Republicans from the House of Representatives conducted a survey of teachers, administrators, and parents from around the country to get a sense of the impact that rising energy costs are having on the education sector. They received nearly...

The Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has proposed that oil and gas Lease Sale 208 for the Central Gulf of Mexico Planning Area be held March 18, 2009. The Notice of Availability of the Proposed Notice of Sale (PNOS) was published in the Federal Register on Friday, October 3. The proposed sale encompasses approximately 6,200 unleased blocks covering more than 33.5 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. This area includes 5.8 million acres, known as the 181 South Area, that will be offered for lease for the first time since 1988. "What makes Sale 208 noteworthy...

Barack Obama and John McCain have been talking about finding new forms of energy, bringing down its cost and finding alternatives to oil. At the recent Clinton Global Initiative summit, both addressed how they would solve an energy "crisis" that has led to pain at the pump for Middle America. Unfortunately, offshore-drilling prospects remain entangled in red tape and legal challenges. A Gallup poll last month revealed that only 1 percent of McCain supporters and 2 percent of Obama supporters consider energy their most important issue. Yet, the cost of energy plays a significant role in the overall health of...

An important event occurred this week, though it went largely unnoticed because of the economic turmoil on Wall Street. On September 30 Congress allowed the 27-year-old ban on offshore oil drilling to expire. This is very good news for Americans and for our energy independence. Conversely, it should be bad news for the world's tyrants who profit enormously from our dependence upon their vast oil resources. One can hope that the expiration of this ban permanently ends the unnecessary and impractical Congressional regulation of our natural resources under the disingenuous guise of environmental protection. I should note here that we...

Twenty-seven years after it was first established, he Congressional ban on offshore drilling officially and quietly expired today. The ban was not a prohibition on drilling per se. Rather, it was a ban on appropriating money for the Interior Department to process of new drilling leases. With the beginning of the new fiscal year, that prohibition will end, once Congress passes a budget resolution that restores the funding. After years of opposition to increasing domestic supplies of energy, a full year of fighting House Republicans on the issue, and a summer of defending itself against a vocal Republican minority and...

Although Hurricane Ike wreaked damage to energy infrastructure and halted oil output, the storm's toll is seen as a partial victory in oil producers' battle with Mother Nature. Preliminary damage assessments indicate that Ike had a smaller impact than past major hurricanes - such as Katrina and Rita in 2005 - on crude oil and natural gas production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. While it's still too early to quantify the impact, analysts say the hit to oil companies' bottom lines isn't expected to be substantial, and Ike will turn out to be less costly than previous storms. Katrina...

Bob Tippee of the Oil and Gas Journal says it's certainly good news for the Gulf Coast economy. "It's good news in the long run because it means supply out in the future and it also means jobs and tax revenue out in the future." The ban was imposed after a spill off California in 1969. Houston democrat Gene Green says that's long in the past. "I don't have environmental concerns. I think, maybe, at one time 30 years ago and 20 years ago we did. But I think we've done so much better today in drilling off shore."

Amid the energy crisis, Democrats are losing the high ground on the environment to a GOP that is pushing oil drilling. As the election enters its endgame, Democrats and their environmental allies face a political challenge they could hardly have imagined just a few months ago. America's growing dependence on fossil fuels, once viewed as a Democratic trump card held alongside the Iraq war and the deflating economy, has become a lodestone instead. Republicans stole the energy issue from Democrats by proposing expanded drilling -- particularly lifting bans on offshore oil drilling -- to bring down gasoline prices. Whereas Barack...

It’s the Energy Stupid! by: Jesse Masai, September 29, 2008 Capitol Hill continues to reverberate with clashes of opinion over the best way forward on the energy crisis facing the country. Only last week, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chairman of the Senate Republican Committee, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, led an effort to open up domestic sources of oil by promoting the American Energy Freedom Day on October 1, 2008. It is estimated that 18 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil and more than 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are currently...

Offshore oil spigot still years awayBy: Associated Press Texarkana Gazette Published: 09/28/2008 WASHINGTON—The welcome sign is going out to oil and gas companies off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. A quarter-century ban on offshore exploration expires in this coming week, but don’t expect to see a chain of drilling platforms from the beaches anytime soon. It will take a couple of years, at least, before any oil or natural gas leases are issued, years more before any oil is found and perhaps a decade before any of it begins to flow to refineries. And what if Congress, after completing a...

Automakers gained $25 billion in taxpayer-subsidized loans and oil companies won elimination of a long-standing ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as the Senate passed a sprawling spending bill Saturday. *snip* The administration won approval of the defense budget. Democrats wrested concessions from the White House on $23 billion for disaster-ravaged states, a doubling of low-income heating subsidies, and smaller spending items such as $24 million more for food shipments to the elderly.

WASHINGTON — Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election. Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and...

WASHINGTON - Offshore oil drilling, which has dominated energy debates in the presidential campaign, is now coming to the Senate. The House late Tuesday approved on a 236-189 vote legislation that would open waters 50 miles off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and natural gas development — if the adjacent states agree to go along. The legislation now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders are expected to mold it to their liking in the next few days.

WASHINGTON — Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election. Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and...

Millions of acres may be opened for offshore drilling after the House and Senate succumbed to a White House veto threat and agreed to lift a decades-old congressional moratorium. The ban on offshore drilling is typically included in annual spending bills or continuing resolutions, but this year lawmakers agreed to let it expire on Oct. 1, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) announced Tuesday night. Obey announced an agreement on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through March 6, which he said he expects the Senate and White House to agree to. “I wouldn’t be here...

WASHINGTON - House Democrats will allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week. Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey is telling reporters that language continuing the moratorium will be omitted this year from a spending bill to keep the government in operating funds after Congress recesses for the election.

More than two-thirds of North Carolina residents support offshore oil drilling, according to a poll conducted by Elon University. About 43 percent of the survey participants say they believe offshore drilling will reduce gas prices in five years or less, though experts say any such impact would be at least 10 years away. And 79 percent say the oil and gas should only be used domestically. The poll also asked about economic conditions. Two-thirds of respondents disapproved of President George W. Bush’s handling of the economy. Meanwhile, respondents were divided on how the N.C. economy will perform in the next...

FOR THE RECORD “[T]he House of Representatives approved a bill to allow offshore oil drilling, but nearly all the Republicans voted against it... It isn’t a drilling bill, it’s an anti-drilling bill. If it becomes law, nearly all the oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf would be off-limits forever... This bill permanently bans all drilling within 50 miles of the US coast, which just happens to be where most of the recoverable oil and gas reserves are. It permits drilling between 50 and 100 miles out only if the adjoining states agree - which they won’t, since the...

House Democrats are bypassing renewal of the offshore oil drilling ban by including the entire Pelosi “drill nothing” energy bill in a draft of a Continuing Resolution. HUMAN EVENTS obtained a copy of the most recent House draft CR this morning. The Pelosi bill, HR 6899, fails to open more than a miniscule part of the available offshore drilling areas and -- even worse -- it establishes permanent bans on development of most other domestic energy sources (natural gas, oil shale, etc.) and does nothing to develop nuclear power. It passed the House earlier this month and is now languishing...

Q: Says here the House of Representatives approved a bill to allow offshore oil drilling, but nearly all the Republicans voted against it. Weren't Republicans the ones chanting "Drill, baby, drill!" at their convention last month? A: Yep. That's why they voted against this bill. It isn't a drilling bill, it's an anti-drilling bill. If it becomes law, nearly all the oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf would be off-limits forever. Q: Huh? The story says the bill "would allow offshore drilling as close as 50 miles from the Atlantic and Pacific coasts." It quotes House Speaker Nancy...

A St. Petersburg Times-Bay News 9 exclusive statewide poll shows more Floridians support offshore oil drilling in times of skyrocketing gas prices. According to the poll, a little more than fifty percent support oil drilling closer than 125 miles from the Florida coast. In Tampa this week, Republican presidential nominee John McCain got a lot of cheers when he talked about drilling off shore and, not suprisingly, the polls showed most Republicans support the idea while most Democrats oppose it.