Interior Department Hides Data, Pushes Back Offshore Drilling Plan

One hundred and twenty five days after the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program public comment period ended, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has still not released the agencies findings. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request revealed that the agency has tabulated substantial comments and that they overwhelmingly support development of America’s OCS resources by a 2 to 1 ratio. 

“The purpose of the comment period was to gauge the mood of the American people. And they responded, submitting over 530,000 comments, the majority of which were in favor of developing our Outer Continental Shelf,” said Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform. “It is about time the MMS came clean and publicly disclosed their findings.”

Ignoring public sentiment, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that he will delay OCS drilling until 2012; President Bush signed a plan into law that would have allowed development of America’s Outer Continental Shelf in 2010.

As a result of this activity, Rep. Griffith is gathering a coalition of House members to send a letter to Secretary Salazar expressing their opposition to his efforts to pushback OCS energy exploration.

Additional resources:

• ATR's letter supporting Rep. Griffith and urging other members to join him
• Letter to Secretary Salazar from Grover Norquist opposing his recent OCS rollbacks
• Press release on the letters and urging Sec. Salazar to reconsider

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