Yesterday two panels debated whether the State of Florida should repeal a 1990 law banning oil drilling in Florida offshore waters, which extend 10.3 miles from the coastline in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively. Earlier this year, a bill to repeal the 1990 ban passed the Florida House, but got stuck in the state Senate. Gannett Florida (the parent company of the Tallahassee Democrat) and Florida State University sponsored the two-hour, televised debate. The supporters of drilling and the repeal of the ban include Florida Energy Associates, a limited liability company that has hired a number of the state's top lobbyists, and David Rancourt, a lobbyist with Southern Strategy Group, a regional lobby shop. One economist from Orlando argued that opening Florida's waters to drilling would create 20,000 jobs and generate $2 billion in state revenues. Opponents of drilling and the repeal effort include the Audubon of Florida, among others. Pinellas County Commissioner Kenneth Welch argued that drilling in near-shore waters would threaten Florida's tourism-driven economy. The Tallahassee Democrat and the Orlando Sentinel provide further coverage.
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Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina have recently formed an alliance to increase collaboration on the protection and management of ocean and coastal resources. The Governors’ South Atlantic Alliance, which is supported by NOAA and other federal agencies and regional organizations, plans to work together on four priorities: enhancing and supporting healthy ecosystems; sustaining and enhancing waterfront cultural traditions; improving water quality; and preparing for natural disasters. For more information, click here.
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Members of the Florida House Select Policy Council on Strategic & Economic Planning heard from several stakeholders at a hearing to discuss exploration and production (E&P) of oil and natural gas in state waters at a hearing convened yesterday. The Associated Press reports that Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Sole suggested that the state stood to gain financially from permitting E&P activities but noted that other uses for offshore lands, including shipping, fishing, military training grounds, or alternative energy projects would likely compete for space along Florida's coastal waters.
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MMS has approved Shell Offshore, Inc.'s plan to drill two exploration wells in Arctic waters. The exploration wells will be located in the Beaufort Sea, off the Alaskan coast, within OCS leases that Shell purchased in 2005 and 2007. (MMS maintains that these leases, which were included in the 2002-2007 5-year plan, are not affected by the recent D.C. Circuit order which remanded the 2007-2012 plan back to MMS for additional analysis, calling into question certain leases sold under it). Before exploratory drilling takes place, Shell must obtain an Application for Permit to Drill from MMS, among other environmental hurdles.
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On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John C. Coughenour denied American Petroleum Institute's (API) motion to intervene in Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA, a suit in federal court in Washington State attempting to force the EPA to consider ocean acidification when evaluating state water quality under the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act requires each state to submit an "impaired waters" list to EPA every two years, and EPA must either approve or disapprove each state's list. The Center for Biological Diversity claims that EPA violated federal law by approving Washington's most recent impaired waters list, which did not include any ocean water areas affected by acidification. API sought to intervene in support of EPA, arguing that because some of its members currently hold licenses to discharge into Washington's coastal waters, it has an interest in the litigation that would not be adequately represented by EPA.
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Earlier today the Supreme Court denied the government's petition of certiorari in Dep't. of Interior v. Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp. (Docket 09-54), an appeal of a Fifth Circuit ruling earlier this year that held the Deepwater Royalty Relief Act of 1995 did not authorize price thresholds in deepwater oil and gas leases issued between 1996 and 2000.
[Note: The Supreme Court's docketing sheet indicating denial of certiorari is a large document and may take time to download.]
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Testifying before a federal task force charged with developing a comprehensive ocean spatial management plan, Deerin Babb-Brott of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs requested that the task face take into account the differing approaches taken by different states. However, Babb-Brott noted that states do have some common interests, including streamlined federal permitting processes for offshore projects and easier access to federal databases to assist in state ocean planning. Find further details in BNA Daily Report for Executives [subscription required].
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