|
Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time
As he has done consistently throughout his political career, President Obama is once again using a position on energy policy – this time offshore domestic drilling – as a strategic tool to pragmatically move his agenda forward. With great fanfare, but little advance warning, President Obama announced Wednesday that he would lift an existing federal ban on offshore oil and gas drilling. The timing of the announcement was notable. Coming right on the heels of the big health care victory and at a time when Congress was in recess, the news indicates that the President and his team are using the health care victory to put energy back at the top of the agenda and establish it as a priority worthy of Presidential attention after many months on the back burner. In combination, Wednesday’s announcement shows a President who has gained political capital from his health care victory and acted swiftly to define the parameters of the debate on energy policy in advance of the introduction of the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill. While in recent months it seemed as if the President’s agenda on climate and energy was drifting, yesterday’s announcement shows that the Obama will not avoid tackling energy issues for the rest of his term.
 Source: New York Times
Details on the Plan
Obama’s proposal would lift a federal ban on oil and gas drilling off the southern Atlantic coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the north shore of Alaska, the most significant statement the President has made on energy this year. At the same time, if individual tracts are deemed suitable for development by the Interior Department, they would be opened up to drilling, while the northern Atlantic coastline, the Pacific coastline, and much of southern Alaska would still be protected. (See here.) Under the Administration’s plan, the Interior Department will proceed with a lease sale for companies interested in drilling 50 miles off the Virginia coast before 2012.Leasing off the coasts of other mid-Atlantic and southeastern states would be authorized in Interior’s 2012-2017 program. The White House is also calling for the opening of a major swath of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which is mostly off-limits under a 2006 Gulf drilling law. In addition, Obama announced two other initiatives to reduce oil imports: an agreement between the Pentagon and the USDA to use more biofuels in military vehicles and the purchase of thousands of hybrid vehicles for the federal motor pool.Obama said specifically that increased use of biofuels was critical to national security.
See full article here.
|
