In a nutshell, areas in the arctic are designated and PRE-APPROVED for oil exploration and drilling. Then an oil company buys a lease and pays for it. Then an oil company applies for permits to actually do the drilling. Then the EPA starts to delay and delay and delay. Often for as many as 5 years before it may ultimately DENY the permit.
So the HOUSE 'o Representin' decided to pass a bill that would REQUIRE the EPA to either approve or deny the permit within 6 months. Now its off to the SENATE. Anyone want to bet if this will pass? I suspect that Harry Reid and his crew will knock this common sense bill down in flames.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...Type=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
So the HOUSE 'o Representin' decided to pass a bill that would REQUIRE the EPA to either approve or deny the permit within 6 months. Now its off to the SENATE. Anyone want to bet if this will pass? I suspect that Harry Reid and his crew will knock this common sense bill down in flames.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011...Type=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
. . . The Republican-controlled House voted 253 to 166 in favor of the bill, which would require the Environmental Protection Agency to approve or deny applications to drill on the outer continental shelf within six months.
"Current impediments have delayed development of the Beaufort and Chukchi sea for over five years," the bill's sponsor, Republican congressman Cory Gardner, said in a speech on the House floor.
"These are areas that have already been approved for drilling; the revenues for the leases have already been collected by the federal government," he said.
The bill, which faces a tougher road to passage in the Democrat-controlled Senate, would also eliminate the authority of EPA's Environmental Appeals Board to weigh in on the Arctic exploration permits.
That appeals board scuttled Royal Dutch Shell's plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea this year, when it revoked a key air permit.
The board's decision was the latest in a series of setbacks Shell has encountered since it began picking up significant offshore Alaska leases in 2005. . . .