>>Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters on Friday that the administration's six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will morph into a three-year total ban.<<
Bob, that seems like a hysterical political rant of dubious factual nature. Obama may be reinstating the partial drilling ban that Bush removed during the 2008 campaign, but do you really think he's drastically expanding it to all federal waters as the above statement implies? If so, why did the MMS just announce this GOM lease sale to be held next week?
Release: #4074
Date: March 12, 2010
Media Advisory
MMS Director Liz Birnbaum to Open Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 213
NEW ORLEANS –The Director of Minerals Management Service, Liz Birnbaum, will participate in the Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 213 in New Orleans on March 17. She will open the Federal oil and gas lease sale at 9 a.m. CDT at the Louisiana Superdome with brief remarks. Following the bid reading, she will hold a media availability to discuss the results of the sale.
The sale, held by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS), encompasses 6,958 unleased blocks covering more than 36.9 million acres offshore Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Approximately 4.1 million unleased acres in the “181 South Area” are included in this sale, with Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas sharing in revenues from tracts leased in that area.
Blocks are located in Federal waters from three to more than 230 miles offshore, in water depths of about 10 feet (three meters) to more than 11,200 feet (3,400 meters). MMS estimates that this sale could result in production of approximately 0.8 to 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 3.3 to 5.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
mms.gov
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