In orange are areas being proposed for oil leasing.
The Department of interior on Tuesday
released its five-year draft plan for the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017 to 2022. A 60-day
public comment period ending March 28 begins Wednesday. The department has reviewed more than half a million public comments to get this far.
For industry the draft plan doesn't include enough territory. For some eco-activists, it includes too much. Kate Sheppard reports:
The draft plan includes 14 potential lease sales in eight planning areas. Ten of the sales are in the Gulf of Mexico, three are off the coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet areas, and the final one includes parts of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. It also declares certain portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off limits for sales, which the Interior Department said is a recognition of the "unique and sensitive environmental resources" in those areas.
From the Interior Department:
“The safe and responsible development of our nation’s domestic energy resources is a key part of the President’s efforts to support American jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” said Secretary [Sally] Jewell. “This is a balanced proposal that would make available nearly 80 percent of the undiscovered technically recoverable resources, while protecting areas that are simply too special to develop.”
“The draft proposal prioritizes development in the Gulf of Mexico, which is rich in resources and has well-established infrastructure to support offshore oil and gas programs,” added Jewell. “We continue to consider oil and gas exploration in the Arctic and propose for further consideration a new area in the Atlantic Ocean, and we are committed to gathering the necessary science and information to develop resources the right way and in the right places. We look forward to continuing to hear from the public as we work to finalize the proposal.”
See reactions below the orange spill.
In an email, Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee and co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus, stated:
“Despite spending years claiming not to have enough access, oil and gas companies already hold more than 27 million acres of leases that aren’t producing any energy. They should develop those areas before they and their Republican allies complain any further. I am concerned that this new plan includes lease sales that put the entire eastern seaboard at risk of a catastrophic oil spill, especially because Congress failed to enact offshore safety legislation after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy. I thank President Obama for protecting certain sensitive areas in the Arctic Ocean, but am concerned about the additional lease sales scheduled there and will carefully review Interior’s proposal to make sure adequate safeguards are included.”
New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, and Rep. Frank Pallone also voiced objections to the draft plan. In a joint statement, they
said:
Opening up the Atlantic coast to drill for fossil fuel is unnecessary, poses a serious threat to coastal communities throughout the region, and is the wrong approach to energy development in this country.
Environmental advocates also objected. Sheppard cites Claire Douglass, the campaign director for climate and energy at the environmental group Oceana, who said:
Opening up the Atlantic is moving in the wrong direction. The economics aren't there, and the environmental impact is too risky.
The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club previously
announced its opposition to the proposed Atlantic leasing:
Virginia’s lucrative tourism and fishing industries are completely dependent on maintaining the viability, health and sustainability of Virginia’s extremely sensitive and fragile coastal environment. Beyond catastrophic and recurring small oil spills, all drilling activities and day-to-day operations present a threat to both Virginia’s coastal environment and economy. Offshore drilling is not only dangerous to our oceans, marine life and people; increasing offshore oil drilling will accelerate climate change. Especially given Virginia’s extreme vulnerability to sea level rise, we must do everything within our power to stop further reliance on dirty fossil fuels that drive climate change.
The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade and lobbying group, presented an unsurprising opposite view. API Director of Upstream Erik Milito
said:
The administration is compromising our ability to compete globally by restricting so much of the nation’s oil and natural gas resources. The draft offshore leasing program proposed today completely ignores areas where oil and natural gas development could create more than half a million new American jobs and generate hundreds of billions of dollars for the government.
While considering the Atlantic for potential development is a good step, the administration’s proposal represents the bare minimum for potentially opening that area by including only a single lease sale six years from now.
What we really need is a serious draft plan to get us out of the "all of the above" approach the administration has taken up until now. While its pushing for renewables and conservation has been better than anything since the Jimmy Carter administration, its support for developing fossil fuels moves us in the wrong direction.
A fresh energy policy is required, one that makes global warming a centerpiece and moves us—quickly—toward less reliance on fuels that add to the greenhouse gases already burdening our atmosphere. Clean, green energy should be the No. 1 priority of that policy, with No. 2 being a move away from fossil fuels. We should be reducing offshore drilling, not adding to it.