{"id":242229,"date":"2010-01-28T08:24:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T13:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3086"},"modified":"2010-01-28T08:24:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T13:24:55","slug":"leases-off-va-coast-delayed-until-at-least-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/242229","title":{"rendered":"Leases off Va. coast delayed until at least 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/missions\/science\/robo_sensors.html\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/images\/content\/111118main_oil_rig.jpg\" width=\"315\" align=\"right\" height=\"252\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/eenews.net\/Greenwire\/2010\/01\/27\/8\/\" >Greenwire<\/a>: The U.S. Interior Department plans to wait until at least 2012 to issue any oil and gas drilling leases off the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Chesapeake_Bay_National_Estuarine_Research_Reserve%2C_Virginia\">Virginia <\/a>coast, meaning delays are in store for a five-year offshore plan implemented under the George W. Bush administration.<\/p>\n<p>Lars Herbst, a regional director for the agency&#8217;s Minerals Management Service, announced the delay last week at an industry-only offshore drilling workshop in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eoearth.org\/article\/Ecoregions_of_Texas_%28EPA%29\">Texas<\/a>, people in attendance told Reuters. Eileen Angelico, a spokeswoman for the Minerals Management Service, confirmed Herbst&#8217;s remarks and said more time will be needed to examine what environmental impact offshore drilling would have.<\/p>\n<p>The Bush administration&#8217;s offshore plan called for the lease in November 2011 of 3 million acres about 50 miles from the Virginia shoreline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[Officials are] still analyzing whether they&#8217;re going to be able to hold the lease sale then or not,&#8221; Angelico said.<\/p>\n<p>Newly elected Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) wrote a letter in December to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urging him not to obstruct offshore drilling projects.<\/p>\n<p>The oil and gas industry has also lobbed criticism. &#8220;This just demonstrates what remains a pattern with the Salazar Interior Department. Delay, delay, delay,&#8221; said Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute. &#8220;Instead of moving forward, and conducting environmental reviews so the sale could occur in 2011, Salazar stalled&#8221; (Tom Doggett, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSN2610221420100126?type=marketsNews\" >Reuters<\/a>, Jan. 26). <strong>&#8211; GN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"akst_link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.earthportal.org\/news\/?p=3086&amp;akst_action=share-this\"  title=\"E-mail this, post to del.icio.us, etc.\" id=\"akst_link_3086\" class=\"akst_share_link\" rel=\"nofollow\">Share This<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greenwire: The U.S. Interior Department plans to wait until at least 2012 to issue any oil and gas drilling leases off the Virginia coast, meaning delays are in store for a five-year offshore plan implemented under the George W. Bush administration. Lars Herbst, a regional director for the agency&#8217;s Minerals Management Service, announced the delay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4055,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-242229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}