Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less

For eight months Americans submitted comments to the Minerals Management Service regarding the newest offshore oil and gas leasing program in the Outer Continental Shelf.  Even though the comment period ended over a month ago, MMS has been mum on the breakdown of the results.  Despite claims by Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar that the process for leasing portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for oil and gas would not happen "behind closed doors," that looks to be exactly what is happening. 

So today we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to MMS to disclose all relevant documents relating to the comment period, including comment tabulations and internal correspondence discussing the results.

The Department of Interior did confirm that it received more than 530,000 total comments for the Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, 2010-2015.  Sources confirm that comments in support of offshore drilling outnumber those opposed by 2-1... more »

According to the Anchorage Daily News, the Obama administration has given preliminary approval to Shell Oil to explore for oil in Alaska's Beaufort Sea. Shell will begin operations next year, after obtaining a drilling permit from the Minerals Management Service.

Of course, the two leases approved by the administration are less than what Shell had hoped for, thanks to the usual suspect: litigation by environmental extremists.

Shell's plan is much less ambitious than what the global oil giant had envisioned a few years ago after purchasing the leases. In 2007, the company said it wanted to drill more than a dozen wells in the area. But the company faced opposition from some village leaders and environmentalists, including lawsuits involving some of its other offshore leases in the Arctic.

The story notes, however, that the approved leases "are not subject to any litigation at this time," which is a good sign. more »

Yes, you read that correctly.

President Obama, during a town hall meeting in New Orleans this week, said that he supports more American energy, which includes developing more oil and natural gas here in the United States.  He also said that he wants more nuclear power, in line with France and Japan:

"So what I think we need to do is to increase our domestic energy production. I'm in favor of finding environmentally sound ways to tap our oil and our natural gas. I'm in favor of -- there's no reason why technologically we can't employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way...

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In yet another example of the federal government working to oppose the interests of most Americans, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wrote a letter recently to the Department of Interior to try and convince Secretary Ken Salazar to dramatically reduce plans to allow offshore energy exploration.

While not binding, the significance of NOAA's recommendations could be enormous:

"...if adopted, they would restrict development in some of the nation's most resource-rich untapped offshore areas...

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Last September, the United States Congress chose to support American jobs and American energy by allowing the ban on offshore drilling to expire. For the first time in more than 25 years, drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) became legal, offering America the opportunity for more energy, more security, and more jobs.

Unfortunately, the current administration was quick to slow down this opportunity to create jobs and decrease our reliance on foreign sources of oil. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced in February that he would extend the public comment period by six months, effectively prolonging the now-expired ban on offshore energy development in America. And recently, Secretary Salazar hinted he might delay the process even further and not make a decision on drilling until 2012.

This obstructive action has serious national security consequences while restricting job creation and economic growth. Offshore drilling has the potential to generate an astonishing $273 billion per year in additional economic growth and create millions of new, high-paying jobs. It would also generate almost $75 billion in revenue per year for federal, state, and local governments in the form of royalties and new tax revenues.
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Today, we drove out to the Minerals Management Service, the agency within the Department of Interior that decides when and where we drill offshore.

Secretary Salazar recently said that he may end up sitting on his hands in terms of offshore drilling longer than he has already. But he was going to wait to see what kind of feedback he would get from the public.

That's why the Dept. of Interior has had a public "notice and comment" period for the last 6 months - to solicit feedback.

Well with your help we were able to collect over 90,000 comments in favor of a drill here, drill now approach. And we handed them all in today (see video below)... more »

It appears that the United States might well be the only country that is not looking at responsible domestic oil exploration as part of its energy policy.

Now India is looking to drill for more oil:

Cairn India is scheduled to start oil production in western India after five years developing the fields. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled Saturday to inaugurate production at one of Cairn's fields in the western state of Rajasthan. Cairn and its partners have invested about $2 billion developing the fields since their discovery five years ago.

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Three weeks ago we commented on the yet-to-be-released finding of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on the role of speculation in the oil market.  The conclusion was to state that speculators were to blame for volatile oil prices.

The official announcement came yesterday, and sure enough, speculators are the target.

Of course, this contradicts what the CFTC itself concluded in the middle of last's summer huge spike in oil prices.  In July 2008, the CFTC released a report that "does not support the proposition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices."
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Last week we highlighted a disturbing story about how Cuba is going to allow the Russians to drill in the Gulf of Mexico, potentially as close as 45 miles from the American shoreline.

We pointed out how it makes no sense for the Cubans to allow drilling so close to our shores while our own government has needlessly delayed the process for American oil and gas exploration.

But in today's Wall Street Journal, the narrative of our current irrational energy policy got worse:  America will be financing offshore oil and gas exploration... in Brazil.

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In today's Wall Street Journal, T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner argue that America has the energy resources to liberate itself from foreign oil.  With this point, they are certainly correct.

But Pickens and Turner completely ignore one key resource:  American oil.

The authors claim that the United States "sits on top of massive reservoirs of natural gas...that contain more energy than all the oil in Saudi Arabia."

But the United States also sits on top of massive reservoirs of oil, more than three times all the oil in Saudi Arabia.

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