President Bush Lifts Offshore Drilling Ban, Crude Drops over $6.00 a Barrel

With The Presidential lifting of the Ban, Congress now has a limited amount of days to do the same by lifting the congressional ban.  There is already congressional opposition

Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence. It just gives millions more acres to the same companies that are sitting on nearly 68 million acres of public lands and coastal areas.”

“This proposal is something you’d expect from an oil company CEO, not the president of the United States,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee. “The president is taking special-interest government to a new level and threatening our thriving coastal economy.” ( source: New York Times)

And finally, in just about 45 minutes, President Bush will have remarks in the Rose Garden in which he will announce that he is going to lift the executive prohibition on the Outer Continental Shelf for — that would allow for increased domestic oil exploration and production if Congress also lifts its ban. And about a month ago, President Bush asked Congress to move forward and to work with him in order to do this. We asked Congress to take that step. They have not even held a hearing on the issue, even though there’s been a lot of talk about it in the country. There’s a big debate in the country, and I think Americans are increasingly realizing that we need to start to look for more of our own resources.

We have improved technology tremendously to be able to do so in environmentally friendly ways. So we will take this action today and we will continue to call on Congress to act, and now the ball is squarely in their court.

We are able to actually explore for the oil or the gas, it just takes a little bit of time. And what the , I believe so, in terms of just practice of how we’ve been working here, but I’ll have to check in terms of if there’s anything written or that needed to be written. There’s obviously many people who are working on the library, but none — I don’t know of anybody at the White House who has any dealings with it — any particular dealings with the library, the development of the library, the foundation. I don’t know of anybody here at the White House.

You’ll remember that I took the White House to task for its “You go first!” games on lifting the offshore drilling ban. See here. There’s an executive order ban that his dad signed and there’s the congressional ban. Back in June, I highlighted the Institute for Energy Research’s open letter to President Bush pressing him to tear up the executive order.

Took him long enough, but he’s finally listening:

The White House says President Bush is planning to lift an executive ban on offshore oil drilling.

In a Rose Garden statement on Monday, the president plans to lift the ban. But by itself, the move will not lead to more drilling off America’s coastline.

Congress must still lift its own legislative ban before offshore drilling can happen.

Ball’s in your court, San Fran Nan…will you cry “hoax” again or get Congress off its collective arse and actually do something about energy independence now?

In related news, a federal judge sided with the enviro-nitwits and struck down a plan to drill in a Michigan forest. The Sierra Club rejoices:

pponents of a plan to drill for natural gas beneath a wilderness area known as the Mason Tract are celebrating a federal judge’s decision to block mineral exploration there.

A judge determined federal officials failed to perform adequate environmental assessments prior to granting approval to drill.

“Absent of going back and doing the full environmental impact statement or appealing, it’s dead,” said Marvin Roberson of the Michigan Sierra Club, a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal government to halt the drilling.

Savoy Exploration of Traverse City for years wanted to slant drill a new well beneath the sprawling, scenic Mason Tract from a nearby spot on federal forestland. A pipeline and production facility would be installed if gas is found.

A lawsuit was filed in 2005 by Anglers of the Au Sable, the Mackinac Chapter of the Sierra Club and Tim Mason, grandson of the man who donated the Crawford County land to the state.

The suit questioned whether the U.S. government performed an adequate environmental assessment of the proposed drilling and if all mineral lease laws were followed.

 clear satellite evidence of major spills was borne out by final reports. In May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) published their offshore damage assessment: “113 platforms totally destroyed, and 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10″ or larger diameter.”

Pipeline damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita  caused  spillage, according to the official report prepared for the MMS by a Norwegian firm:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Caused 124 Offshore Spills For A Total Of 743,700 Gallons. 554,400 gallons were crude oil and condensate from platforms, rigs and pipelines, and 189,000 gallons were refined products from platforms and rigs. [MMS, 1/22/07] ,  Six Offshore Spills Of 42,000 Gallons Or Greater. The largest of these was 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a “major spill.” [MMS, 5/1/06]

 The 9 million gallons reported spilled were comparable with the Exxon Valdez’s 10.8 million gallons, but unlike the Exxon Valdez, were distributed throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast states, many in residential areas. The most massive spills included: