Most Energy Experts Consulted by Interior Dept. Oppose ‘Six Month Blanket Moratorium’

CNSNews.com ^ | June 22, 2010 | Edwin Mora

[Man50D]

Complete title: Most Energy Experts Consulted by Interior Dept. Oppose ‘Six Month Blanket Moratorium’ on Offshore Drilling

Eight of the 15 experts consulted by the Interior Department for a report about oil drilling safety -- a report commissioned by President Barack Obama -- said they disagreed with the report’s call for a six-month ban on offshore drilling. They outlined their objections in a June 8 to Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu (D) and David Vitter (R) and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R).

The energy experts also said the final version of the report was "modified” from their review of the draft in regards to the offshore drilling issue.

“A group of those named in the Secretary of Interior’s Report, "Increased Safety Measures for Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf," dated May 27, 2010 are concerned that our names are connected with the moratorium as proposed in the executive summary of that report,” the experts said in their letter.

“There is an implication that we have somehow agreed to or ‘peer reviewed’ the main recommendation of that report,” the eight experts wrote. “This is not the case.”

They added that “the scope of the moratorium on drilling which is in the executive summary differs in important ways from the recommendation in the draft which we reviewed.”

“We believe the report does not justify the moratorium as written and that the moratorium as changed will not contribute measurably to increased safety and will have immediate and long term economic effects. Indeed an argument can be made that the changes made in the wording are counterproductive to long term safety.”

[pepsionice]

After six months...it won’t matter...most of the rigs will have moved south to Brazil. I think that was the intention in the first place.

[bray]

The decision was made before the experts were called. It was made before the leak.

Pray for the Gulf

[The Great RJ]

Watch gasoline go to over $4 per gallon by summer’s end as domestic oil supplies dwindle. That will stir up another crisis setting the stage for a government takeover of big oil.