| Author |
Message |
pir81 |
|
Post subject: Offshore drilling ends in stalemate
 Posted: Oct 04, 2006 - 12:58 AM
|
|
Puffer
Joined: Dec 31, 1969
Posts: 73
Status: Offline
|
|
Offshore drilling ends in stalemate
Posted by the Ocean County Observer on 10/3/06
BY LARRY WHEELER
GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON — Despite record-setting gasoline prices this summer, members of
Congress returned home this week to face constituents with nothing to show
for months of talk about opening up new areas to drilling.
Lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on legislation that some said would
ease the pain at the pumps by boosting domestic production of oil through
increased drilling in federal waters off the U.S. coastline.
After months of hearings and debates, lawmakers were unable to resolve
stark differences between drilling bills passed by the House and Senate.
"The whole offshore drilling debate showed just how gridlocked and at-odds
Congress is," said Athan Manuel, director of lands protection for the
Sierra Club, one of the nation's leading environmental groups.
The House bill would have ended a 25-year moratorium on offshore drilling
and opened nearly the entire U.S. coast to exploratory drilling, leaving it
up to coastal states to decide whether rigs could go up within 50 to 100
miles of their shores.
The much narrower Senate version would have carved out an 8.3-million-acre
parcel in the Gulf of Mexico, far from any land, for new exploration and
production.
"We would have loved to see them come to agreement," said Michael Kearns, a
spokesman for the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents
more than 300 companies involved in the offshore oil and natural gas
industries.
On a positive note, Kearns said, many members of Congress came to realize
this year that the Outer Continental Shelf is an "underutilized resource
that can be safely explored."
Some lawmakers hope Congress may come back to the issue after the Nov. 7
election.
A lame duck session is widely expected, and lawmakers who pushed for
expanded drilling offshore are predicting a last-minute compromise.
"We will not rest until something truly meaningful is achieved," several
House members, including Rep. Richard Pombo, chairman of the House
Resources Committee, said in a joint statement. "We have gotten very close
to working out the differences between our bill and that passed by the
Senate."
Other lawmakers aren't so optimistic.
"I'm hopeful, but I don't get the sense that it's going to happen this
year," said Sen. Mel Martinez, an Orlando Republican who helped broker a
deal to keep rigs far off Florida's coast. That deal cleared the way for
passage of the Senate's drilling bill.
With no agreement in place, U.S. offshore drilling policy will proceed as
scheduled, leaving in place bans that prohibit rigs from going up off most
of the U.S. coast, except in the central and western Gulf of Mexico and
parts of Alaska.
The Minerals Management Service is considering a five-year production plan
that would open new areas to exploration. Those areas are off the Alaska
coast and, for the first time, the Virginia coast.
Copyright © 2006 Ocean County Observer. All rights reserved. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
