Kathianne
02-15-2010, 08:45 PM
So this was the change they've been waiting for?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=auKBO.MWmHLE
Drilling Bans to Cost U.S. $2.36 Trillion, Industry Study Says
By Daniel Whitten
Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.
Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.
Former President George W. Bush and Congress ended bans in 2008 on drilling along the U.S. coastline. The Interior Department hasn’t acted to open the newly available areas, including offshore Alaska and on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Congress has kept the Arctic refuge off limits.
“Required actions to access the energy resources thought to exist there have not been taken,” O’Neal Hamilton, a former chairman of South Carolina’s Public Service Commission, said of the areas where leasing hasn’t proceeded. “Our research allows policy makers to know the extent of the resource base and the effects that maintaining the restrictions would have on the country.”
The report, issued today, said opening the areas would free up 43 billion barrels of oil and 286 trillion cubic feet of gas. The U.S. used 22.8 trillion cubic feet of gas and 5.2 billion barrels of oil in 2009, according to a press release issued with the report....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=auKBO.MWmHLE
Drilling Bans to Cost U.S. $2.36 Trillion, Industry Study Says
By Daniel Whitten
Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Restrictions on oil and gas drilling will cost the U.S. economy $2.36 trillion through 2029, according to a study requested by state utility regulators and paid for in part by industry-sponsored groups.
Drilling restrictions in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the U.S. coastline are blocking access to about nine years’ worth of U.S. oil and gas consumption, according to the report. Among sponsors are the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the industry-funded Gas Technology Institute, of Des Plaines, Illinois.
Former President George W. Bush and Congress ended bans in 2008 on drilling along the U.S. coastline. The Interior Department hasn’t acted to open the newly available areas, including offshore Alaska and on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Congress has kept the Arctic refuge off limits.
“Required actions to access the energy resources thought to exist there have not been taken,” O’Neal Hamilton, a former chairman of South Carolina’s Public Service Commission, said of the areas where leasing hasn’t proceeded. “Our research allows policy makers to know the extent of the resource base and the effects that maintaining the restrictions would have on the country.”
The report, issued today, said opening the areas would free up 43 billion barrels of oil and 286 trillion cubic feet of gas. The U.S. used 22.8 trillion cubic feet of gas and 5.2 billion barrels of oil in 2009, according to a press release issued with the report....