US Halts Bush Plan for Offshore Drilling

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Feb 10, 2009 5:23 PM CST

(Newser) – Interior chief Ken Salazar isn't quite ready to drill, baby, drill. Salazar said today that a last-minute Bush initiative opening up millions of offshore acres to oil drilling would be shelved pending a 6-month review, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The policy affects much of the East and West coasts. Salazar, who denounced the Bush move as a "headlong rush of the worst kind," plans meetings with the oil industry and environmentalists alike.

Salazar said the proposal “opened the possibility of oil and gas leases along the entire Eastern seaboard, portions of offshore California and the far eastern Gulf of Mexico with almost no consultation from states, industry or community input.” Environmentalists cheered the move, but one industry group said the “unnecessary delay will hold America back, at the precise moment when we need to move forward.”

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (1)]

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. (AP Photo)

An offshore oil platform in Santa Barbara, Calif. (AP Photo)

Beachgoers hit the surf with a ship and an offshore drilling rig seen in the background. (AP Photo)

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For those of you from the oil and gas industry: I pledge to you that you will have a seat at the table. We need your expertise and your resources as we move forward. But a drill-only energy approach is not enough. - Ken Salazar

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 7 comments

Doctor-Zaius

Feb 11, 2009 7:17 PM CST

Wasn't the fact that crude oil was 150 bucks a barrel the key factor in making people want this? Guess what? Oil is 40 bucks a barrel. Sorry oil companies. You don't get to ruin our oceans so you can add assets to your balance sheets that you may or may not drill any time soon. Besides, this wouldn't have lowered gas prices a nickle.

Guest

Feb 11, 2009 5:03 AM CST

Either we develop alternative energy or we become the world's backwater while even China and Korea's energy development surpass us. I say we can do it. What say you?

Shannonals

Feb 11, 2009 3:03 AM CST

How is this a broken promise? It was never promised that the US would continue to look into further Offshore Drilling, it was the Republican nominee who stated that

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Last week, Salazar scrapped plans for drilling near Utah landmarks
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US • Green • Politics

Bush administration • Barack Obama • environment • Ken Salazar • moratorium • oil drilling • Obama administration • offshore drilling

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