LAT: Plan for Coastal Drilling Emerges (rampant exploitation everywhere)

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Plan for Coastal Drilling Emerges
Pointing to Katrina's hit to fuel supplies, some in Congress seek to diversify by loosening a ban covering areas such as offshore California.

By Richard Simon and Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON — Citing hurricane damage to the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico, key lawmakers are trying to relax a decades-old federal ban on new drilling off California and the Atlantic Seaboard and to encourage energy prospecting in the Rocky Mountains.

Congressional proposals also aim to waive some air pollution rules to encourage expansion of oil refineries and to authorize oil drilling beneath Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The legislation, likely to be voted on soon in the House, comes as oil- and natural-gas-dependent manufacturers have urged Congress to reopen the "85% of all federally controlled coastal waters (that) are currently off-limits to energy production."...

***

(House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W.) Pombo's 168-page bill....would allow new exemptions from environmental rules, shorten public comment periods and limit lawsuits over leasing decisions made by the Bureau of Land Management....(It) proposes to kick-start the dormant shale oil industry by greatly discounting the royalty rate that companies would pay in the first 15 years of production....(and) would allow a waiver of the National Historic Preservation Act on private lands, so that oil and gas development could proceed without assessing potential effects on Native American burial or archeological sites....

***

Supporters of energy development have been encouraged by a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which found that 57% of respondents view it as more important to develop new energy sources than to protect the environment....


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-drill3oct03,0,3909533.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[rodeodance]

1. falls under 'exploiting katrina'!!

[tex-wyo-dem]

2. There using Katrina as an excuse for drilling in previously off-limits...

areas of the Rockies as well. Primary targets:

- Rocky Mountains
- Off-shore California
- Off-shore Florida
- ANWR

Yet, of course, no comprehensive plan for alternative fuels and conservation. :mad:

[hatrack]

3. With WHAT RIGS?

13 offshore rigs were either severely damaged or destroyed by Rita, and the survey's not even finished yet.

Together they represent 10% of the working rigs in the Gulf of Mexico (exploratory rigs as opposed to a platform, which is fixed in place once the oil/gas is confirmed) and the effects of this - a shortage of offshore rigs - is going to ripple worldwide.

If you have the $100 - $500 million to drop on an offshore rig, be prepared to pick up your order in 2008, if not later, so it's going to take a while, to say the least, to bring back this lost exploration capacity.

And why is this so important? Because the only potential big plays left in North America are offshore. Sure, you can go take your thumper trucks and prod the desert in Utah or make the Wyoming high plains reverberate, but it ain't going to matter a thimbleful of camel snot in terms of coming anywhere near meeting demand for oil and gas.

[SujiwanKenobee]

4. And if anyone thinks this effort would offset gas prices--

--forget it. Likely that products obtained will go to the highest world bidders while enriching the coffers of the Masters of Oil. I'm learning to hate capitalism as practiced.

[Gregorian]

5. There's a monkey on our back.

We'd rather fight than switch. But eventually we will have to switch. So are we going to ruin wildlife refuges, the coast, and who knows where else, or are we going to actually use our brains and break the habit?

After all, if we switch, we also bump start the economy. Now we wouldn't want to do that, would we. Oh, and we'd also stop global warming AND create fewer enemies over our gluttony of crude.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. Apparently a majority would rather fight than switch...

given the poll results cited. Very discouraging.

[underpants]

7. Use less

Just a thought