Offshore Drilling Follies (Cont.)

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MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2008
D.C. CURRENT
Offshore Drilling Follies (Cont.)
By JIM MCTAGUE

The offshore-drilling battle.


IF YOU WANT TO GET BEYOND THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign's mud-slinging to truly understand how our energy security has become dependent on despots like Abdullah, Hugo and Vladimir, just ponder the history of the Destin Dome, a geological formation in the Gulf of Mexico, about 25 miles from Pensacola, Fla., that purportedly has enough natural gas to supply a million homes for 30 years. Not only will you then appreciate how difficult it is to win approval to drill offshore, you'll also appreciate the inanity of Democratic charges that Big Oil isn't drilling on all of its existing lease holdings.

We're not dumping on the Democrats alone. Republicans, including the White House's current occupant, his father, and brother Jeb, are equally guilty of obstructing offshore energy production in return for votes, and consequently jeopardizing our nation's security.

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Those bans didn't cover the Destin Dome, which went on the block in 1984. Chevron and partners Conoco and Murphy Exploration & Production drilled three exploratory wells there in 1987, 1989 and 1995 that found an estimated 2.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But to actually produce gas, Chevron needed federal and state approval.

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Chevron proposed drilling 12 to 21 gas wells. Florida bureaucrats took their sweet time before nixing the application two years later. Chevron appealed to the Department of Commerce, which can overturn state decisions. Reluctant to upset anyone, Commerce simply stalled. Under the law, there is no deadline on appeals. Chevron sued the federal government in 2000, claiming it had been denied a timely and fair review of its plans. Clinton stepped down, and Bush II was sworn in. His Commerce Department twiddled its thumbs, too. Meanwhile, Bush met secretly with Florida's then-governor -- his brother Jeb -- a foe of offshore drilling. They agreed to have the federal government buy back the leases for $115 million and place a moratorium on drilling at the Dome until 2011. There are now 140 actual leased tracts there that can't be drilled, reports Lisa Flavin, a senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute in Washington.


http://online.barrons.com/article/SB121460971892012411.html?mod=googlenews_barrons

SUMS up the current state of US energy denial pretty well.