Tag Archives: Offshore drilling

Promises Made, Promises Broken

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On Thursday, The Financial Post reported that the Biden administration had failed to deliver the proposed five-year offshore oil and gas development plan that had been promised by the end of the month, according to sources.

The article reports:

Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland in May had vowed to unveil the draft proposal ahead of the June 30 expiration of the current plan. The department will not be able to hold any offshore oil and gas lease sales until a new plan is finalized.

Briefings with officials meant to take place Thursday ahead of a public announcement were unexpectedly delayed, according to sources. The reason and length of the delay were unclear.

I will be honest, I am not a big fan of offshore drilling, but it is a fact of life, and it needs to be planned and controlled. The Biden administration’s dragging their feet on this is not helping anyone.

The article notes:

Interior had recommended to the White House that all federal offshore oil and gas drilling auctions over the next five years be located in the Gulf of Mexico, where the drilling industry has already been focused for decades, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The White House could make changes to include other regions.

The expected proposal comes as U.S. President Joe Biden seeks to balance his goal to transition the country away from fossil fuels against a Congressional requirement to hold regular drilling auctions, and intense political pressure to boost energy supplies to ease soaring inflation.

In recent years, the Interior Department has leased areas off the coast of Alaska. And former President Donald Trump had proposed a vast expansion of drilling sales to cover more than 90% of coastal waters, including areas off California that had not been offered since the 1980s and new zones in the Atlantic and Arctic. Those plans were blocked by legal challenges.

Just for the record, we do not currently have the technology to transition from fossil fuels to green energy. If the government would get out of the energy business, the free market would probably develop the technology, but we do not currently have it. Currently, the quest for green energy resembles the historic quest for a perpetual motion machine. The laws of physics make that an impossible dream. In 2021 more than 200 people lost their lives in Texas due to a cold snap that stopped the windmills they depended on for power from providing electricity. In 2014 I posted an article about what happened when Spain tried to transition to green energy. It wasn’t pretty. We don’t need to repeat their mistake.

UPDATE:  On July 1st, The Hill reported:

The Biden administration is punting a decision on whether to open up more lease sales for offshore drilling.

    • In a statement issued Friday, the administration said it is still working on a plan, and that when issued it could include as many as 11 specific lease sales for offshore oil and gas drilling or as few as zero.
    • An Interior Department official said equal weight is being given to scenarios with zero sales, some sales or all 11 sales.

The statement and department’s proposal for the program’s future was issued one day after a previous five-year offshore drilling plan expired. That plan had been launched by the Obama administration.

Some Democrats Support American Energy

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some House of Representatives Democrats who are supporting a move back to American energy independence.

The article reports:

A group of House Democrats wrote to President Joe Biden Wednesday urging him to boost energy production by unveiling an offshore drilling plan.

The four Democrats — Texas Reps. Vicente Gonzalez, Sylvia Garcia, Henry Cuellar and Lizzie Fletcher — said the Ukraine crisis has proven the need for domestic oil and gas production to ensure the U.S. isn’t reliant on hostile foreign powers, according to the letter. They urged Biden to make progress on a new five-year offshore leasing plan to replace the current one that is set to expire in late June.

“The energy crisis in Europe demonstrates the vital national security benefits of robust domestic production and the consequences of relying on foreign nations to satisfy our energy needs,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “One important action your administration can take to ensure American energy independence is to publish a new Five-Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Plan.”

The Biden administration has dragged its feet on the replacement plan which the Department of the Interior (DOI) is mandated to issue under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said there is still a “significant amount of work” to do before the administration can publish the plan and begin the lengthy public feedback process, during an April 28 hearing with the House Appropriations Committee.

Actually, I think it would be better just to open up drilling on land and continue construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, but this is at least a step in the right direction. Offshore drilling does occasionally have accidents, but is generally safe. On land drilling seems to be less risky. The one thing to remember as the Biden administration increases our dependence on foreign oil is that oil from America is generally obtained in a manner more environmentally friendly than the oil from some of the countries we are importing oil from. We were energy independent under President Trump. It would be nice to return there.

Making America Energy Independent

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There are a lot of entities that have a vested interest in preventing America from becoming energy independent. The obvious ones are OPEC and the Soviet Union. When you look at the money behind the anti-pipeline and anti-fracking movements, you will see a lot of Saudi Arabian money and a lot of Russian money. Why? Some scientists believe that the oil and natural gas resources in America reachable by fracking are larger than the oil resources in the Middle East. Fracking will quickly end OPEC’s monopoly on the world’s oil supply. It will also prevent the possibility of Iran at some point blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Thirty percent of the world’s oil travels through the Strait of Hormuz. Imagine the disruption of the world’s oil supply if that Strait was blocked. Right now, Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas to Europe. The pipelines run from Russia to Europe. Russia has been known to threaten Europe with shutting down the pipeline if Europe does not comply with Russia’s wishes. American oil and natural gas would also alleviate that threat. The environmentalists who are blocking the development of America’s fossil fuel reserves are serving as useful idiots for OPEC and the Russians. The elevated status these objectors were given during the Obama Administration is about to end.

The Daily Caller is reporting today that the Trump Administration is getting ready to open up new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling.

The article reports:

Industry sources familiar with the matter told Platts an executive order is in the works to rewind Obama’s decision to make large swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic off-limits to oil and gas drilling.

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told industry representatives the new drilling plan would be signed soon, according to Bloomberg. However, he gave few details on what the order could include.

The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) new five-year offshore drilling plan could take years to develop and would replace the Obama administration’s five-year plan finalized in November.

Like it or not, fossil fuel fuels the world’s economy. Until the free market is allowed to work to develop a reliable source of green energy, fossil fuel will continue in that role. The good news is that natural gas is an extremely clean-burning fossil fuel, and America has plenty of that.

The article concludes:

Trump is expected to sign the order by the end of April, and it’s sure to draw legal challenges from environmentalists who’ve argued Obama’s indefinite ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling can’t be overturned.

Obama used Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, a 1953 law governing offshore drilling, in an unprecedented way, blocking leases in the Atlantic Ocean and the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Obama’s order took 125 million acres in Arctic seas and four million acres in the Atlantic Ocean out of future lease sales indefinitely. Supporters said the former president’s actions “permanently” banned drilling in those regions.

But the drilling ban is only permanent if Congress doesn’t change the law or Trump doesn’t move to test it in court. Past presidents have reduced the size of Section 12(a) designations but never fully repealed them.

The U.S.-held portion of the Arctic Ocean is estimated to hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The oil and gas industry has struggled to access these vast energy reserves but new discoveries in northern Alaska have reinvigorated some interest in the region.

Energy independence is both a matter of national security and economic success. Cheap fuel prices will bring industry back to America. American labor costs may be higher than the almost-slave labor that exists in some countries, but American quality control standards are also high. Lowering energy costs (and lowering corporate tax rates) will be a positive step toward reviving an American economy that has not been doing well in recent years.