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Friday, July 25th, 2014

Not Just the Atlantic: Obama Leasing Millions of Gulf Acres for Offshore Drilling

Author:     STEVE HORN
Source:     Firedoglake
Publication Date:     Wednesday July 23, 2014 8:00 pm
 Link: Not Just the Atlantic: Obama Leasing Millions of Gulf Acres for Offshore Drilling
Stephan:   This is a dreadful story. In the face of the evidence that carbon energy is literally destroying our world, it is mind boggling to me that the Obama Administration is leasing out millions of public acres for drilling and Fracking. I think we have to take this as the measure of how carbon energy interests have corrupted the government -- whether Democratic or Republican. Once again we choose the past over the future.

Deploying the age-old ‘Friday news dump,” President Barack Obama’s Interior Department gave the green light on Friday, July 18 to companies to deploy seismic air guns to examine the scope of Atlantic Coast offshore oil-and-gas reserves.

It is the first time in over 30 years that the oil and gas industry is permitted to do geophysical data collection along the Atlantic coast. Though decried by environmentalists, another offshore oil and gas announcement made the same week has flown under the radar: over 21 million acres of Gulf of Mexico offshore oil and gas reserves will be up for lease on August 20 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the [Mercedes-Benz] Superdome.

On July 17, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the lease in the name of President Obama’s ‘all of the above” energy policy.

‘As part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand safe and responsible domestic energy production, BOEM…today announced that the bureau will offer more than 21 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area,” proclaimed a July 17 BOEM […]

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