Obama To Open Up 1.8 Million Alaskan Acres To Oil Drilling

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.

The petroleum reserve covers 23 million acres on Alaska's North Slope. That's an area slightly smaller than the state of Indiana.

The BLM withdrew for consideration lands in a buffer zone around Teshekpuk (TESH'-eh-puk) Lake because of its importance to migratory birds.

Eric Myers of Audubon Alaska says the agency took a reasonable approach with its measures to protect birds and calving caribou.

Comments

[plaidsportcoat]

01:00 AM on 07/14/2010

6.422 comments - but no people in the streets at all. It's a shame.

[danza1631]

12:10 AM on 07/14/2010

To drill is to butcher the Eco system.

[VioletsAreBlue12]

12:31 PM on 07/13/2010

Sign the 20/20 Petition; http://www.politicalwild.com/2010/07/84-days-of-disgrace-in-gulf-and-2020.html

[mountainweb]

08:10 AM on 07/13/2010

In reality it sounds like a better chance of less damage than deep water drilling so really a move in the right direction, however, given obama's track record of selling out to the highest bidder, better make sure that the oil companies are FORCED to adhere to the safety standards that are in place.

[sachazg]

04:02 AM on 07/13/2010

Not what I voted for!

[tony wise]

12:26 AM on 07/13/2010

thanks for saving BP obama

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/34957/20100712/bp-shares-rise-on-12-bln-alaskan-assets-sale-talks-with-apache-analysts-skeptical.htm

[mudshark12]

11:34 PM on 07/12/2010

Alaska has a very fragile ecosystem to allow oil companies the possibility of screwing up. Oil companies have a bad reputation and disdain for the environment.

[Coinyer101]

10:27 AM on 07/12/2010

This is a clincher fer me...., after the gulf of toxin incident, there just is no excuse for this....,

President Obama has lost me.....,

[bobdob]

02:24 PM on 07/12/2010

Meanwhile, you continue to use oil every day of your life--it's in the roads you walk on, it's in the tires on your bicycle, it's in the plastics in your computer. In short, you're swimming in the stuff. You don't want wars for oil in the Gulf region, you don't want offshore drilling, and viable alternatives are a decade or more away. So what's your solution? Hemp? I'd suggest if you didn't smoke quite so much of it, you'd realize that's a joke--not a solution. Whining is sometimes satisfying, but it rarely solves problems. Americans (and that includes you and me) use 25% of the world's oil, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon.

Obama has lost you? Grow up.

[Shelly King]

03:06 PM on 07/12/2010

Confusing Hemp with Marijuana is just ignorant. If you want to comment on Hemp production you should educate yourself first and not perpetuate lame stereotypes.
Hemp could save us from many of our problems but has been held down by corrupt corporations and crooked politicians for far too long. It grows prolifically without the use of herbicides or pesticides, and can replace fuels and plastics.

[BoTurney]

05:10 PM on 07/12/2010

Geeze, that was pretty harsh. Seems like you coulda stayed away from personal insults, even if you disagree with him. Not hatin on ya, just sayin...

Aside from that, this *is* a two step process. We need to decide where we want to go with regards to energy and then work on ways to get there.

[ideasmatter]

10:21 PM on 07/12/2010

Agreed

[lackofoversight]

09:22 AM on 07/12/2010

Let's see.... He broke a 30 year moratorium on off shore oil drilling that the Repubs wouldn't touch. He gave billions of dollars to the nuclear industry also breaking a ban that the Repubs didn't dare try because we have no place to put the lethal radioactive waste. Now he opens up Alaska for drilling and the Democratic Party is silent. I can go on and on about the liberal promises he made during the campaign and the George Bush II agenda he's giving us now. Time for all Democrats to wake up, pull back the curtain and see the real wizard of Oz.

[Eyeful]

02:18 AM on 07/13/2010

"Meet the new boss, WORSE than the old boss"

Worse? How can that be? Well, at least with G.W. Bush we KNEW where he was coming from because he made no bones about it. Obama led us to believe one thing and is doing the other. He's a real politician who will act for those who are the most persuasive, and right now it's lobbyists and corporations who have his ear.

[lackofoversight]

02:48 AM on 07/13/2010

My progressive partner during the campaign tried to continuously dampen my enthusiasm for Obama by telling me, "Don't ever forget, he's a lawyer and politician from the Chicago Democratic machine". But in those days he sure didn't sound like one.

So I didn't listen, and like a fool, I donated $500 to his campaign. Now I have to constantly repeat, "Yeah, yeah you were right".

[WorkhelpWorkhelp]

12:44 AM on 07/12/2010

Maybe they'll find some oxygen down there too......

[omobob]

11:02 PM on 07/11/2010

1.8 or 18 million, it doesn't matter. It wont solve our energy problem just extend briefly the inevitable. While Germany approaches 100% alternate energy efficiency, the US limps into a limited future of dependence on foreign oil. Currently the US only supplies itself 40% of what we use. Wouldn't matter anyhow, there’s not enough oil under american soil or off shore to n=make us energy independent for more than 3 years. period.

[jwoww]

09:38 AM on 07/12/2010

plastic products which are used extensively in our everyday life and products, if you have not noticed, cannot be made from wind or solar energy. The basic ingredient is OIL.

petrochemical & coal, natural gas are the lifeblood of the worlds economic systems. you want to suppliment energy with wind farms or solar fields fine but they cannot sustain the manufacturing or transportation needs. Coal, gas and oil reserves must be harvested until an expansive unifomly designed nuclear energy program can be put in it's place and even then oil, coal and natural gas will still have their place in our everyday lives.

the sooner you come to that realization, you will sleep much easier.

[omobob]

10:18 AM on 07/12/2010

Nuclear power? And the waste goes where for the next 100,000 doesn't years. Thats the answer? No. What part of the US doesn't have any oil to speak of dont you get. We have 6% of the worlds oil but use 25%. Do the math. Oil is an expensive future. You can move people and products across america with a new infrastructure of transportation built around alternative energy. Oil to Nuke is not a far reaching plan but one im sure the oil and nuke companies would love. I believe we have to have a better plan than that.

[Coinyer101]

10:28 AM on 07/12/2010

Anything made from petrol, can be made from hemp fuel...., it's clean, too.

[my2pesos]

09:35 PM on 07/11/2010

I really dislike Obama, he is just as bad as Bush, if not more...

[DocJerome]

09:32 PM on 07/11/2010

This guy is killing himself.

[t iessa]

12:54 AM on 07/12/2010

Unfortunately, a lot of others are also dying.

[Ravi Abunijad]

01:51 AM on 07/12/2010

The right already hated him from the start, so he's just ruining destroying his image for the left. As much as I despise the politics of being a leader for your voters (rather than for your people), I think it is political suicide, the way he's handling everything.

He keeps going with this compromise-first attitude, taking the debate WAY to the right, and then all the Republicans vote against his position, anyway. Now we have what most people will come to identify historically as a conservative Presidency - and all the conservatives are convinced that we have a near-socialist-oh-my-we-need-to-save-the-country-NOW situation. It's a lose-lose at this point. Centrists and liberals are losing their ideas for how to improve the country and conservatives are losing what little common sense they ever had.

It doesn't help anybody. And, I think it's obvious at this point that he can't make that 46.5% like him, so I don't know why he's grabbing up all these ridiculous Republican ideas (like drilling our way out of a larger dependence problem) and pretending that they'll work. I don't know, maybe we're the dumb ones, though: Maybe this is his plan, he's going to keep taking Republican ideas and positions until they don't have any left, and they're reduced to campaigning on "the Democrats... are evil."

You're right though, he is killing himself this way. It is hard to watch.

[DocJerome]

06:22 PM on 07/12/2010

It is extremely painful to watch.

[SECT Dem]

09:18 PM on 07/11/2010

It takes a motorcade of gas guzzlers to get Obama to the golf course, but I use too much fuel in my 30 mpg car to commute to work. Lead by example, sir.

[capnkoolaid]

02:17 AM on 07/12/2010

At least you are doing you part. The POTUS and many others should follow your example.

[NWBrunette]

08:06 AM on 07/12/2010

Oh get a clue. There's just one of him. And gazillions of you. Unfortunately. Now show some maturity and set an example all by yourself.

[Jan Moore]

08:26 PM on 07/11/2010

Yet, for all of their talk about getting off foreign oil hemp is still illegal. So, we all know that the flimsy excuse about getting off foreign oil for security is total bull. This hurts deeply, because the last pristine areas of this planet do not belong to these bastards they belong to all of us and the species that inhabit them. Politics has completely turned this country against itself at the expense of our pride in the beauty of our land and moral judgement. I am so disgusted.

[juerofritzy]

09:24 PM on 07/11/2010

speak out then ....its at least therapeutic

[lauraawm]

06:08 PM on 07/16/2010

vote him out