As Obama announces today that the Administration will open parts of the Virginia coast to oil drilling, a move that the AP called a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, he is also closing several sources in Alaska to drilling, including Bristol Bay, called Alaska's brightest hope for oil. (Note that the Virginia sites were made available after President Bush lifted the ban).The Virginia sources will provide and estimates 130 million barrels of oil and 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. However, in closing Alaska to drilling, Obama effectively says No to 10.2 billion barrels of oil and 19.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This represents a swing of 900 million barrels of US, non-imported from the Middle east, oil.
Outside of ANWR's coastal plain and the National Petroleum Reserve, state geologists believe Alaska's brightest hope for major new discoveries is the Bristol Bay basin, an area in South west Alaska.No doubt, the decision to not pursue the Alaskan fields was a sound, economic decision, not spurred by special interests:
The area is home to big sockeye salmon runs, whales and other wildlife that environmentalists feared would be imperiled if oil-and-gas development occurred.However, argues the Alaska Business Monthly (2004): Recently, community leaders in the region have become worried that fishing will no longer be able to support the local economy. At the request of people in the region, Gov. Frank Murkowski has opened state lands in Bristol Bay to exploration.
According to Shell Oil, who researched drilling in the area, the OCS (outer continental shelf) development could generate an annual average of 35,000 jobs over the next 50 years...These jobs represent a total payroll of $72 billion (2007 dollars) over the 50-year period. Well, we have more jobs these days than we know what to do with anyway.
I find it strange that Obama would open up an area for drilling "50 miles off Virginia's shorelines" but not in the frozen Arctic wastelands of Northernmost Alaska. Could there be some ulterior motives involved?
