Proposal could lead to more offshore drilling

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The Bush administration took a preliminary step this morning to open parts of the outer continental shelf for offshore oil and gas drilling, lobbing a political firecracker into the lap of the incoming Obama administration.

The draft proposal would start a two-year process that could result in drilling leases off California, Alaska, the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. It won’t be published in the Federal Register until after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, meaning he could stop it immediately or discard its recommendations later.

Congress and Bush allowed dueling bans on shelf drilling to expire last year, under pressure from high gas prices and a public appetite for drilling. Appearing before a Senate committee on Thursday, Obama’s Interior secretary nominee, Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), did not commit to whether he would support reinstating a ban. He said it might be appropriate to allow drilling in some areas but not others.

Bush Interior Department officials cast their last-minute move as a favor for Obama. Randall Luthi, the director of the Minerals Management Service, said in a press release that “We’re basically giving the next administration a two-year head start. This is a multi-step, multi-year process with a full environmental review and several opportunities for input from the states, other government agencies and interested parties, and the general public.”

The American Petroleum Institute applauded the move.

“American consumers have been demanding access to the oil and natural gas located off our coasts and the draft proposed five-year plan, with its inclusion of areas that had been off-limits for more than 20 years, is a good step in the right direction,” President and CEO Jack Gerard said in a press release. “Developing our domestic resources is crucial to getting our nation’s economy back on its feet and getting more Americans back to work in well-paying jobs.”

Environmentalists screamed foul.

‘It seems like it’s one last, desperate act of the Bush administration to impose its agenda on the incoming administration,” said Josh Dorner, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. “We expect this to be one of the many issues that the incoming administration will fully review.’

-- Jim Tankersley