Interior Secy Says US Will Push Search for Energy (ANWAR, coastal waters)

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Interior Secretary Says U.S. Will Push Search for Energy
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 28, 2005


WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said Tuesday that after the two destructive gulf hurricanes that battered the nation's energy heartland, the Bush administration would intensify its push to expand energy development on public lands including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in the nation's coastal waters.

"The vulnerability of having all the energy supplies and refining and processing capacity in one geographic area reinforces the idea that we need diversity of supply," Ms. Norton said in an interview.

Citing government reports on the increasing demand for petroleum and natural gas and the sustained high prices that tend to result, she said, "The hurricanes have brought more attention to the fundamental issue."

While Ms. Norton took no position on a Congressional proposal to end a 25-year moratorium on oil leases on the outer continental shelf and to eliminate internal departmental appeals of administration decisions to lease public lands, she did not reject its approach.

She said she had read only a two-page summary of the measure, which is before the House Resources Committee, but she was open to the idea of alternative energy development on public lands....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/28/politics/28norton.html