Industry wants Florida waters in lease plan

摘要

Washington—The oil and gas industry is pressing the Obama administration to plan for drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in its next five-year plan, even though drilling in that planning area will remain under a congressional moratorium for the entirety of those five years. In the more than 1,600 comments submitted to the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, environmentalists, lawmakers, industry lobbyists and others pushed for everything from including all 26 planning areas in the next five year plan to prohibiting offshore drilling entirely.