The oil industry is worried the Obama administration could roll back a major new oil and gas drilling plan that would open portions of the Atlantic Coast to new energy production for the first time in decades.
The industry’s concerns come amid state worries that new production in the Atlantic would “wreak havoc” on the densely populated communities along the seaboard that rely on the ocean for their livelihoods.
The American Petroleum Institute, representing major oil and gas companies, submitted comments Monday on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s proposed five-year plan for issuing offshore drilling leases. The proposal lays out the number of leases the agency will give to the industry and where drilling will be allowed on nearly all areas of the nation’s coast lines.
The institute is worried that the bureau will reduce the number of new leases under the plan, which it argues would remove prospects for spreading economic vitality to states on the Atlantic Coast that have typically been excluded from oil and gas development.
“The administration should not make the map or the list of lease sales any smaller,” said Erik Milito, the group’s upstream director who overseas drilling. “Too many promising areas are already excluded, taking off the table hundreds of thousands of potential jobs and tens of billions of dollars in government revenue.”
Maryland’s attorney general does not see it the same way. In comments also submitted Monday, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh urged the ocean bureau to rescind its plans to open up areas off the Atlantic seaboard to drilling.
“Regional economies based on tourism, recreation and fishing would be at risk,” where drilling could “wreak havoc” for hundreds of miles, Frosh’s comments read.
Frosh’s comments join with Maryland Democratic senators Ben Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, who have opposed the agency’s plans to open the Atlantic to offshore drilling on the outer-continental shelf.
The comment period for the new five-year proposed oil and gas leasing program for 2017–2022 ends today at midnight.
