Earth Equity News

Salazar Rejects Bush Drilling Plan. By H. Josef Hebert, AP, February 11, 2009. "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has rejected a Bush administration plan to open vast waters off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and gas drilling, promising 'a new way forward' in offshore energy development including new wind projects. Salazar at a news conference Tuesday criticized 'the midnight timetable' for new oil and gas development on the country's Outer Continental Shelf proposed by the Bush administration four days before President Barack Obama took office Jan. 20. The secretary said the previous administration's plan did not take into consideration the views of states and coastal communities, nor a need to better understand what energy resources are at stake, especially off the Atlantic coast where oil and gas estimates are more than three decades old... Salazar said any offshore energy plan must include a push for more renewable energy, principally wind power. 'The Bush administration was so intent on opening new areas for oil and gas offshore that it torpedoed offshore renewable energy efforts,' maintained Salazar. 'It was not their priority.' He promised to move aggressively to complete a new regulation on offshore renewable energy programs including wind, solar and wave energy projects."