The Permitorium Continues -- Democrats Want It Lifted

Link here.

US Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) urged participants at the Southern States Energy Board’s Governors Energy Summit to build support for federal legislation aimed at reviving offshore oil and gas projects that the Obama administration shelved following the Macondo deepwater well accident and crude oil spill. “I don’t believe offshore energy exploration can provide the whole solution to our nation’s economic problems,” Warner said at the Oct. 4 meeting, adding, “But it certainly would help.”

Warner noted that the bill introduced by himself and Virginia’s other US senator, Democrat James A. Webb, would move the Virginia federal Outer Continental Shelf lease sale back into the next 5-year OCS program, reversing Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar’s decision to omit it from the 2012-17 round. The sale was canceled following the Macondo accident and spill. “The notion that we delay it another 5 years seemed too long,” he said.

And here's why they are concerned: drilling returning to the Gulf. Not exactly.

News reports to the contrary, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico still hasn’t staged a full comeback from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent drilling moratorium, according to new research by Quest Offshore Resources, Inc.


Quest’s new analysis shows the number of floating rigs in the Gulf is down 37 percent from its pre-moratorium level. At the moment, just 21 floating rigs are operating in the GOM — and, of those, just 18 are actually drilling wells. Before the moratorium, 33 rigs were operational and 29 of those were actively drilling wells. Thanks to the moratorium, 11 rigs left the Gulf and just one has returned. The loss of those rigs translates into nearly 12,000 jobs lost.

I have no dog in this fight, but with storage tanks overflowing at Cushing, it doesn't look like the US misses that Gulf oil very much. I know folks in the Bakken who are getting oil royalties don't want the permitorium to end.