How About Some Transparency on Offshore Drilling?
Nicolas Loris /
If Energy Freedom Day seems like a long time ago, it was. It’s been since September of 2008 since the Congressional restrictions on energy leasing in 85 percent of America’s territorial waters, which have been renewed annually since 1982, were allowed to lapse. Along with the White House restrictions rescinded by President Bush, it opened nearly all of our federally controlled waters for energy leasing. A lot has happened since, but there’s been no real movement forward on drilling.
The leasing process began with a comment period – extended six months by Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Vince Haley details the subsequent actions from the government:
“More than four months after the comment period ended, the Department of the Interior has failed to make any public announcement about the results, even though sources have told American Solutions for months the comments show a 2-1 advantage in support of offshore drilling.
It took American Solutions almost four months and the power of the Freedom of Information Act to finally uncover indirect confirmation that, out of over 530,000 comments submitted, pro-drilling comments outnumbered anti-drilling comments by a 2-1 margin.