In a reversal, the Obama administration said Wednesday it will not pursue offshore drilling off the East Coast of the United States and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Virginia has become the latest victim of the Obama administration's war against the domestic drilling industry. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced yesterday that waters off Virginia and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico will remain closed to drilling through 2017 despite the commonwealth's strong desire for oil and gas production. The moratorium will cost the Old Dominion jobs and tax revenue while further undermining America's domestic energy industry.
Pointing to the BP blowout and risks of a new environmental disaster, the Obama administration reversed itself Wednesday and promised not to pursue offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or anywhere else along the nation's East Coast.
Democratic Texas Rep. P. Solomon Ortiz has conceded defeat to Republican newcomer Blake Farenthold.
A much-anticipated meeting to smooth over tensions between Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the drilling industry appeared to falter Monday as oil and gas executives, joined by Gulf state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, described Mr. Salazar's visit to Houma, La., as all talk and little action.
President Obama will play host to American Indian leaders at a White House conference on Dec. 16.
Gulf State lawmakers are accusing the Obama administration of putting politics above science after a government watchdog said Interior Department officials misled the public by altering a report to suggest that a group of outside scientists supported a blanket ban on deepwater drilling.
The Republican juggernaut lost a bit of its steam once it hit the Rocky Mountains, with Democrats and Republicans largely splitting the key contested races for governor and Senate, and Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet pulling out a win in a race that was only called late Wednesday.
Steve Henke, then a director of one of the largest field offices for the federal Bureau of Land Management, was applying for a job last year heading an oil and gas trade group when he sent a writing sample to his prospective employer from his government computer.
