Posted on 05/07/2008 9:47:32 PM PDT by calcowgirl
ROCHESTER, Mich., May 7 (Reuters) - Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday he would support incentives to encourage states to develop potential oil fields but would not try to force them to exploit potential resources, especially in environmentally sensitive areas.
"I do believe that we should drill for it," he said when discussing oil exploration at a town hall meeting in Rochester, Michigan. "But I am a federalist and I believe in the rights of states to make those decisions."
He said he believed the U.S. government could do more to encourage states to develop their resources.
"I think we can offer more incentives to states like California and Florida and more of a larger share of revenues and taxes from oil they may exploit," McCain added. "But I can't tell people in California what to do with their coast."
"I can't say we must drill in the most pristine environments," he added.
Energy companies say they need to develop more domestic gas and oil supplies to help meet growing demand, but federally owned areas that hold much of those reserves -- from onshore Alaska to waters off the West and East coasts of the lower 48 states -- have drilling bans.
New offshore energy exploration is now allowed only off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and in some Alaskan waters. A presidential order bans offshore drilling everywhere else.
That is not likely to change after the U.S. election in November. If elected, Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would likely extend the offshore moratorium, which is set to expire in June 2012.
McCain has favored a more flexible approach, giving the states more say on whether they want drilling off their shores.
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers has said McCain "supports the aim of the moratorium to protect ecologically sensitive areas but believes there are some (offshore) areas that can and should be developed for their energy potential."
Senate Republicans introduced legislation recently that would attempt to boost domestic oil production by allowing governors to petition to have the moratorium on offshore drilling lifted for their states and would give states a greater share of royalties.
All three of the candidates oppose opening the spigot to the huge oil reserves that are in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Alaska refuge is the main target of oil industry, which is eager to tap its possible 16 billion barrels of crude. The industry came close to getting ANWR opened under President George W. Bush, who made it a key part of his national energy policy.
McCain told supporters in Rochester he would lead the United States to energy independence and favored developing alternative energies as well as boosting nuclear power production.
Clinton’s extension was signed in 98 for 10 years. It expires Oct 1, 2008.
During 1990, a yearlong study by the National Research Council (NRC) of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences found that insufficient scientific data existed to enable offshore drilling to proceed within the annual congressional OCS Moratorium areas while ensuring that the environment would be protected. Having commissioned this scientific study by the NRC, former President George Bush, Sr., became known as the “Environmental President” in 1991 when he issued his Executive OCS Deferrals, declaring that the existing Moratorium waters, with the exception of Bristol Bay in Alaska, would not be offered for new offshore oil and gas leasing until at least 2002.
During 1998, at a “Year of the Ocean” ceremony in Monterey, California, then-President Bill Clinton extended the duration of these same Executive OCS Deferrals until 2012. The current President George Bush, for the past four years, has repeatedly restated his support for both the annual legislative OCS Moratorium, and for sustaining the Executive OCS Deferrals until 2012. Immediately prior to the U.S. Senate debate on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, Interior Secretary Gale Norton once again restated the continuing support of the Administration for the legislative OCS Moratorium and the Executive OCS Deferrals in her March 16, 2005 letter to Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, although this letter does not contain any new assurances of any additional protection for Florida’s coastline beyond what had already existed beforehand.
From the Sierra Club website. Both are guilty.
There are words and phrases there that are important. The prez has executive deferrals and Congress has the moratoriums. The executive deferral is temporary(until that prez changes his mind or the next president arrives), but moratorium is annual.
The other key word is "except". In that case they say "except Bristol Bay", which is still an area under contention today. When discussion of the moratorium/deferral in the Gulf of Mexico comes up, it always included "except Area 181"
You have to look at what the oil industry wants. You may want the entire US coast open, but the oil industry wants the areas adjacent to existing activity opened. They wanted/want Bristol Bay opened so they could expand into that area. They wanted Area 181 opened so they could expand into that area.
Expanding into adjacent areas requires much less new infrastructure/capital.
If a completely new area of coastal water were to be opened, the oil industry wants the inner continental shelf opened first, and then the outer shelf. So while all the discussion about offshore drilling centers around executive deferrals, congressional moratoriums, and the OCS, the individual states control their ICS and those need to be opened first.
Click here, and scroll down to exhibit 1
This will give you a better understanding of what happened on "except Area 181", back in 2001. Yes, Bush did redraw Area 181. And yes, it was political. But what happened in Florida in election 2000 put the fear of God into Bush and the GOP.
Anyway, the Judicial Watch/Sierra Club lawsuit was settled for Bush in 2006, and Congress did pass the Deep Sea energy bill in Dec 2006. And drilling has begun there.
As an aside to that energy bill, in addition to formally opening Area 181, the issues on the OCS royalties were addressed. That issue had had been simmering since CARA in 2000. And you should realize, that when it comes to opening ANWR, royalties are also an issue there.
Thank you.
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