Feds: Much of oil, gas under lands off limits

[jpak]

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D90Q9RIO0.htm

A new report from the Bush administration says most of the oil and more than 40 percent of the natural gas beneath public lands in the United States are off limits to drilling.

Opening those reserves would give energy companies access to an estimated 19 billion barrels of oil and 95 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, administration officials said Wednesday. That would require Congress to roll back environmental safeguards and lift drilling prohibitions on vast areas -- from Florida to Alaska and across the Rocky Mountain West.

The report, from the Bureau of Land Management, is likely to add to growing political pressure to curb fuel imports and dampen prices by ramping up domestic energy production. But it comes amid a development backlash in some parts of the country, where drilling rigs are blamed for interrupting wildlife migrations, fouling water supplies and marring natural vistas.

"If we want to lower the cost of energy, we must be willing to use our own energy resources as part of a balanced and rational energy policy," said Assistant Secretary of Interior C. Stephen Allred.

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[Turbineguy]

1. It's probably a bit early to open them up now

But in the future drilling will become more benign to the environment.

[tama]

5. Really?

There is no way to use fossile fuels that is benign to the enviroment, period.

[NJmaverick]

2. This is one of the reasons bush helped artificially pump up the price of oil

so he could let his oil buddies drill any where they wanted to.

[tama]

3. "balanced and rational energy policy"

Yeah, killing the planet in order "to lower the cost of energy" (if only for a very short term and not even that) is certainly a prime example of "balanced and rational energy policy". :-)

It would be just too embarrassing to admit that the Gaia-worshipping hippies were right, we would rather die (as a species) than admit that!!!

[iamjoy]

4. If We Want to Lower the Cost of Energy

We need to learn to consume less and conserve more. We need to learn from the European model. Too much of our infrastructure was designed as if cheap fuel would be available forever. It is too late to undo it and start from scratch now, but we could certainly stop adding to our sprawl and start building more sensible communities and cities.