“The call to delay next week’s Department of the Interior Western Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas lease sale shows how out of touch with energy reality and the American people some extremist environmental groups are,” Randall Luthi, NOIA president said in a statement supporting the Department of Interior’s Western Gulf of Mexico lease sale scheduled next week.
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Image of Luthi. From NOIA. |
A petition with nearly 60,000 signatures began recently to stop the upcoming lease sale. The petition targets Sally Jewell, DOI secretary, and Abigail Ross Hopper, BOEM director, asking to not “auction America’s oil until congress supports national parks.
“Thousands of conservation programs could be stopped in their tracks while the government continues selling drilling rights to oil companies,” the petition says.
NOIA disagrees.
“Due to low oil prices and increasing regulatory burden, this is not expected to be a momentous sale, but even so, the oil and gas industry will add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the US Treasury. Offshore oil and gas activities have funded the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) for many years, even though there is little direct benefit to the offshore industry. Delaying the sale due to concerns that the LWCF has not been re-authorized is the epitome of the tail wagging the dog. The problem is with how the LWCF funds have been used, not with the funding source. These groups should be working with Congress to see that the LWCF truly reflects the needs and desires of the public and the conservation community. Their current effort would leave the LWCF with no funding,” said Luthi.
“This is just another misguided and desperate attempt to shut down oil and natural gas production at all costs, and ignores projections showing that US consumers will rely largely upon traditional fuels well into the future. U.S. consumers are currently reaping the benefits of low gasoline prices. To delay or halt lease sales would result in fewer jobs, less revenue to governments, weakened energy security, and higher gasoline prices,” Luthi said.
Earlier this week, BOEM issued a notice of intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for the proposed Gulf of Mexico lease sale 247.
As part of our Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program: 2012-2017 (Five-Year Program), this will be the program's last proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas lease sale in the Central Planning Area (CPA) of the Gulf of Mexico.
The proposed CPA Lease Sale 247 is tentatively scheduled for 2017.
BOEM is proposing to offer for oil and gas leasing approximately 46 million acres in the CPA, with the exception of the whole and portions of blocks deferred by the Gulf of Mexico Security Act of 2006 and the blocks that are beyond the United States’ Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap.
As part of the scoping process, BOEM's public scoping meetings will be held at the following places and times:
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