Bill Would Lift Offshore Drilling Moratorium

By Tad Sooter, 5-03-06

A bill aimed at lifting the 26-year-old moratorium on offshore natural gas development along U.S. coastlines has predictably riled environmentalists who say the Arctic Wildlife Refuge and the Rocky Mountain Front will be next on the list. Previous attempts to lift the ban have never garnered more than 100 votes in the House; this new legislation, which the House may vote on later in May, already has 150 sponsors.

Supporters of the bill have cited high gas prices and foreign energy dependence as reasons to open the continental shelf to gas development. For added effect, bill sponsor John Peterson, R-Penn, has even resurrected favorite bogeyman Fidel Castro, who he says plans to steal our reserves off Florida.

Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club are leading the environmental defense of the moratorium and say landlocked westerners should be concerned because they have an equal say in our energy future, even if the ocean is hundreds of miles away.

“If we allow offshore drilling, what’s next? ANWR? The Rocky Mountain Front?” Sierra Club representative Bob Clark said in Missoula, referring to the similar prohibition of oil and gas development in Montana's Rocky Mountains.

Lydia Weiss, a D.C. lobbyist for Defenders of Wildlife, said politicians are desperate to do something that will address high gas prices.

“We think it’s these members of congress and their fear of what gas prices are going to do to their numbers at the polls in November,” Weiss said.

The offshore drilling moratorium was installed by the first George Bush to protect offshore ecosystems and later expanded by Clinton. Though it prohibits drilling near most of the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as well as Florida, it only covers around 20 percent of U.S. offshore gas reserves.

A second piece of legislation introduced in the Senate would force the lease of drilling rights to a chunk of the Gulf of Mexico off Florida’s west coast called Area 181. The piece is not protected under the moratorium, but Floridians have adamantly oposed its sale. Area 181 would take seven years to develop and would meet U.S. oil demands for about 47 days. The Senate may vote on the bill as early as next week.
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