Energy Secretary Steven Chu this morning praised energy companies for improving safety measures for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaking to reporters at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor, Chu said the rate of applications for licenses — and licenses granted by the federal government — is picking up after a drilling moratorium that followed the Deepwater Horizon disaster a year ago.
Drilling operators “realize it’s in their best interest to drill safely,” Chu said. “It’s going in the right direction.”
Texas lawmakers have complained that onerous federal regulations have created a de facto moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. But President Obama and his administration have been aggressively pushing back against those allegations.
“Any claim that my administration is responsible for gas prices because we’ve ‘shut down’ oil production — any claim like that — is simply untrue,” Obama said in an energy policy address Wednesday. “It might make for a useful sound bite, but it doesn’t track with reality.”
Chu said that dozens of offshore licenses have been granted since the moratorium (all but a few for shallow water drilling).
He said the companies have provided the government with newly required plans to contain any spill that might take place.
“That’s why you’re seeing a dramatic increase in the licenses being issued in the past months,” he said.
Drilling operators “realize it’s in their best interest to drill safely,” Chu said. “It’s going in the right direction.”
What an ignorant statement. Operators have never tried to drill unsafely. It is obvious that unsafe drilling of prolific challenging deep-water wells is not in anyone’s interest.
Dramatic increase compared to one or zero! Why doesn’t someone use a more realistic metric to describe what has happened since the blowout.
“Any claim that my administration is responsible for gas prices because we’ve ‘shut down’ oil production — any claim like that — is simply untrue,” Obama said
Projected loss of oil production of half a million barrels per day from the Gulf of Mexico in 2012, offshore drilling moratorium, cancelled lease sales on land and offshore, cancelled drilling permits in Alaska, and a 2012 budget that eliminates several oil production tax incentives.
What is untrue about what I have posted? Anyone?