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Obama plan would open offshore areas to drilling

 
BY CHRIS CASTEEL | Modified: March 31, 2010 at 11:22 pm | Published: April 1, 2010    Comment on this article Leave a comment

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, saying it was time to move beyond "tired debates” over energy policy, announced Wednesday that his administration would open up long- protected areas off the nation’s coasts to oil and gas drilling.

photo - President Barack Obama speaks at the closing session of the Forum for Workplace Flexibility in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, Wednesday, March 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Barack Obama speaks at the closing session of the Forum for Workplace Flexibility in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, Wednesday, March 31, 2010. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Plan highlights


• It would open up the Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic Ocean from Delaware to Florida.


• Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the plan calls for four more lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico by 2012 and, in later years, would open up two-thirds of the oil and gas resources in the eastern Gulf, currently under a congressional moratorium.


• By 2012, the Interior Department plans to hold two lease sales, one 50 miles off the coast of Virginia in an area previously approved for development and one in the Cook Inlet in Alaska if there is interest from the industry, the development can be done safely and military training in the Atlantic isn’t compromised.


• Drilling proposed for the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic Ocean, though lengthy geological surveys and a public comment process must be done first.


• Bristol Bay in Alaska won’t be available for drilling in the plan, which runs through 2017.


• No proposed drilling or development in areas near California, Oregon or Washington or in the North Atlantic.

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Drilling rigs may be in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia within a few years, and more of the Gulf of Mexico will be leased, including parts off the coast of Florida if Congress goes along. The plan also calls for more drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska.

According to the Interior Department, the Obama proposal would make available as much as 80 percent of the oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf that is considered economically recoverable. The announcement, made at Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, follows numerous efforts by the administration to subsidize and promote alternative energy to move the country away from fossil fuels.

Obama said Wednesday that the nation still needs traditional energy sources to maintain economic growth and security.

"Ultimately, we need to move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right, between business leaders and environmentalists, between those who would claim drilling is a cure-all and those who would claim it has no place,” Obama said.

"Because this issue is just too important to allow our progress to languish while we fight the same old battles over and over again.

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Related Topics: Science and Technology, Technology, Nature and the Environment, Oil Production and Refining, Energy Technology, Offshore Drilling, Environmental Issues and Protection, Alternative Energy



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