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You can’t take something away if you never gave it in the first place.

That’s how Don Briggs, president of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, responded to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s announcement Wednesday the Obama administration won’t allow offshore oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic and Pacific coasts for at least seven years.

In March, about a month before BP’s fatal blowout, the White House made a proposal to allow oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf and the mid- and south Atlantic.

“The key word there was proposal,” Briggs pointed out. “It had to be voted on by Congress. That was never done.”

Briggs complained that, prior to President Obama taking office, 85 percent of offshore drilling was off limits, but now 99 percent of it is off limits.

“No country in the world has as much of its natural resources off limits for drilling as the U.S. does,” he said.

The argument the country needs to rely more on domestic oil reserves — and therefore drill more of its own petroleum for reasons of defense — falls on deaf ears, Briggs said. Furthermore, most people aren’t concerned about job losses in energy producing states, he added.

“But when oil prices get high enough, that’s when people are going to care,” he said.

Briggs predicted consumers would reach a tipping point when gasoline hits $5 a gallon in the next three years as a result of growing demand from developing nations and a shortage of U.S. supply.

“That’s when consumers are going to ask, ‘Why aren’t we drilling?’”

LOGA is a trade organization that represents the state’s independent and service sectors of the oil and gas industry.

Leonard Castille, vice president of sales for Lafayette-based Frank’s Casing, which supplies crews and equipment for petroleum drilling worldwide, said Salazar’s announcement constitutes a “step back” for the nation’s energy producers, yet it is no surprise.

“This isn’t shocking,” Castille said. “We knew right after the BP spill that this would come since the Florida governor did not want drilling off the coast of Florida because of the beaches.”

Castille was referring to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

One way or the other, there would be no drilling off Florida because the state controls the waters within 10 miles of its coastline, he pointed out.

Salazar said drilling will be allowed to continue in the western and central Gulf and in the Arctic seas before 2017.

“This is just going-forward news, and it doesn’t address any permits that would affect Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi,” Castille said. “Salazar is still dead center on that.”

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WASHINGTON — Pointing to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Obama administration on Wednesday reversed course, announcing it would not allow new oil and gas drilling leases in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The decision was hailed in Florida, which depends on tourists drawn to the state’s white beaches, but criticized by Louisiana politicians and oil industry officials.

President Barack Obama had proposed in March opening up the waters to new development. But then came the April 20 BP rig explosion, which killed 11 men and resulted in an estimated 172 million gallons of oil discharging into the Gulf over three months.

“As a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill we learned a number of lessons, most importantly that we need to proceed with caution and focus on creating a more stringent regulatory regime,” U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

The move will not affect drilling leases currently allowed in the western and central sections of the Gulf off Louisiana’s coast, Salazar said.

The eastern part of the Gulf was closed to drilling four years ago by the U.S. Congress.

The eastern Gulf — an area stretching from 125 to 300 miles off Florida’s coast — was singled out for protection by the U.S. Congress in 2006 as part of a deal with Florida lawmakers that made available 8.3 million acres to oil and gas development in the east-central Gulf. Under that agreement, the protected region is to remain off limits to energy development until 2022.

In order to open more of the eastern Gulf to drilling, the administration would have to ask Congress to lift the drilling moratorium. Obama had wanted to lift that moratorium prior to the BP incident.

“We believe the most appropriate course of action is to focus development on areas with existing leases and not expand to new areas at this time,” Salazar said.

Under the revised plan, the Interior Department will not propose any new oil drilling in waters in the Atlantic Ocean and eastern Gulf for at least the next seven years. Already-planned lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, expected in March and August, will be delayed until late 2011 or early 2012, Salazar said.

The announcement triggered statements from the Louisiana delegation members, who contend that the move will cost the Gulf Coast jobs while increasing the nation’s reliance on foreign oil.

“While OPEC will certainly love today’s announcement, unfortunately this purely political decision by President Obama will cost thousands more American jobs and increase our dependence on Middle Eastern oil,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, said.

U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, said the move will affect the rest of the nation.

“If we are serious about fixing the economy, we have to be serious about energy,” Cassidy said. “The decision to eliminate access to domestic energy supply is a decision not to create domestic energy jobs and a decision to continue to send billions to OPEC nations.”

Gov. Bobby Jindal also criticized the move in a prepared statement. “The increased uncertainty from the federal government continues to make the Gulf a less attractive place for economic investment and will instead bring jobs and capital to the shores of other countries while making our nation more dependent on foreign sources of energy,” Jindal stated.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said, “Cutting off access to American resources from American businesses will only send more of our money and jobs overseas while we watch energy prices continue to rise.”

Lawmakers in Florida praised Wednesday’s decision. Drilling in state-controlled waters has long been banned because of fears that a major spill would damage state beaches.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist called the decision “wonderful news” that would be favorably received by the tourist industry and state residents alike.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who has long fought for drilling bans off Florida’s Gulf coast, praised Obama for “listening to the people of Florida.”

Louisiana delegation members have criticized the Obama administration for slowing down the issuance of new drilling permits while safety concerns are addressed. The administration imposed a five-month deep water drilling moratorium in the Gulf following the rig explosion.

Though the move was not intended to affect shallow water drilling above 500 feet, the Interior Department has only issued 18 permits, when prior to the ban, about a dozen were approved each month.

Normally, there would be 16 to 18 wells approved per month, said Don Briggs, president of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, a Baton Rouge-based group that represents energy-related businesses. “When I saw this announcement, I thought to myself, ‘What’s this about? Why don’t we just open up the central Gulf of Mexico where we already are so we can get back to work?’ ” Briggs said.

Chris John said the “de facto” drilling ban remains in place for a number of reasons. John is president of Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, a Baton Rouge-based trade association for energy-related companies.

Among other things, the new regulations require energy company chief executive officers to certify that their companies have met the new regulations, he said. Companies must also re-examine their projections of the worst-case scenario for a ruptured well. And companies must also undergo additional rig inspections.

The new regulations have created uncertainty, and that has slowed down the permitting process, John said.

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COUSHATTA — Hickory Grove Baptist Church Pastor Mike Fort couldn’t help get a little emotional Tuesday before offering a prayer prior to the dedication and grand opening of EnCana Oil and Gas’ first compressed natural gas fueling station.

Having lived in the area 30 years, Fort knows how Red River Parish has suffered blow after blow to its economy during that time. So the opening of the fueling station on U.S. Highway 84 west of Coushatta’s corporate limits served as more than just a high point for EnCana’s commitment to expand the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. It also signaled a new future for the parish.

“EnCana and folks like you gave us a shot in the arm. Their lives have been changed,” he said, referring to the landowners who have received instant leasing or royalty riches. “This parish has been changed. “» From the bottom of my heart I say thank you, thank you for coming to our parish.”

For EnCana, the fueling station represents more than just a facility. “It is one milestone along a road to a cleaner energy future, a building block in the infrastructure of a growing natural gas highway network,” EnCana’s Executive Vice President Eric Marsh told the crowd of company representatives, area elected officials and industry supporters.

The station is the second to be built in this region since the Haynesville Shale made its mark over two years ago. The first, the Bossier Alternative Fuel Station, opened in October in East Texas Street in Bossier City.

Initially, EnCana will limit access to its station to its fleet of 20 or so vehicles used to service the parishes in which the company is operating. By January, the site will be opened to other corporate fleets. And by the end of the first quarter of 2011, the public will be allowed to utilize the self-service pumps, said David Hill, EnCana’s vice president of Natural Gas Economy Operations.

EnCana has a multi-year plan to convert all of the company’s fleet of more than 1,300 truck and passenger vehicles to compressed natural gas. Locally, only half of the trucks are converted but all will be soon.

Hill said the advantage for the service trucks is that employees will be able to go about the twice the range of gasoline-only vehicles because they can easily switch from natural gas to gasoline when one or the other runs out.

The price also is lower than gasoline. The per-gallon equivalent of natural gas is about $2, but is expected to be lowered to $1.70.

The fueling station is the only one planned by EnCana in the region but construction is nearing completion of other stations in Colorado, Wyoming and two in Canada.

All go hand-in-hand with the goal to promote natural gas as an alternative fuel source and displace the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, Marsh said.

“Due to sweeping technological breakthroughs in the development of natural gas in North America, cleaner-burning natural gas provides an abundant, affordable alternative to conventional gasoline, and at a cost that is 20 to 40 percent lower in many regions,” Marsh said. “Carbon dioxide emissions from CNG vehicles are about 20 to 30 percent lower than from vehicles running on gasoline and natural gas doesn’t contribute significantly to creating smog because it emits very low levels of nitrogen oxides and particulates. Natural gas vehicles have become one of the fastest growing sectors in the alternative vehicle market worldwide. We believe this trend will continue.”

In addition to touting the benefits of natural gas, state Sen. Gerald Long pointed to the economic impact it’s brought not only in Red River Parish but also in neighboring parishes. He cited increased tax revenue as “literally changing the face of Red River Parish.”

Long added: “As a nation we’re making progress toward alternative domestic energy options and the state of Louisiana should feel proud to be part of these encouraging developments. In the past year Louisiana has enacted legislation providing some of the most attractive natural gas vehicle and infrastructure incentives in the U.S. We are committed to supporting natural gas as a clean, affordable Louisiana-produced transportation fuel.”

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Gas abundance is not limited to the U.S. The latest World Energy Outlook report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) released in early November basically threw the entire natural gas market under the bus by predicting the glut will worsen next year and last for 10 years, which will only fade gradually as demand rises strongly in China.

You can follow US shale plays at the Shale Blog and at Shale News. One interesting recent find that was mentioned in the recently televised documentary “Haynseville”, is that the already huge Haynesville shale deposit was compounded by another huge deposit discovered in a slightly shallower layer of rock. Haynesville’s portion of the graph above may continue to grow as a result.

Something has to be done with all of this gas production, so for now a move is on to create LNG facilities for export. Export of LNG to the UK has already begun.

While several import facilities were planned and built (before unconventional gas even came into the picture) in anticipation of high LNG imports in the coming decades, the U.S. has very limited LNG export capability. That could be about to change.

There are two LNG export facilities announced this year–Freeport LNG and Australia’s Macquarie Bank have agreed to build one in Texas to export 1.4 billion cubic feet per day of gas, and Cheniere Energy’s will be on the site of its Sabine Pass facility to export 16 million metric tons per year. Both plan to produce and export LNG by 2015. _Chu

Besides converting the unconventional gas bonanza to LNG for export, gas to liquids may eventually become more feasible on the US mainland, after the departure of Salazar, Obama, Boxer, and the rest of the energy starvation reich.

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Oil and natural gas mean a lot to an energy state like Louisiana but must be balanced in a way that is safe and fair to our lands, landowners and residents.

Too many news stories of late have chronicled hazards related to the industries — from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to accidents around drilling rigs to issues of noise and water pollution in the booming Haynesville Shale natural gas areas of northwest Louisiana.

Perhaps there have been too few stories of the jobs and other economic advantages and gestures of good will that often accompany oil and natural gas enterprises — from energy workers renovating a farmhouse at a wildlife refuge to new roads and bridges, teacher raises, or charitable donations and bequests to churches and nonprofits.

For every story of hazard or greed, there’s another of helpfulness and philanthropy, especially in the two years since the discovery of the Haynesville Shale reworked this area’s landscape. The challenge here and throughout the rest of the state and nation is finding the balance that lessens the bad and elevates the good as we seek to fill our energy needs in the best ways possible.

In Louisiana, more public regulatory activities are needed to lessen those times when companies or workers aren’t doing the right thing or when humans make errors that cost lives and harm the environment and quality of life. More regulatory oversight — properly funded and staffed — is needed in a number of areas.

For instance, Louisiana charges polluters much less than the amount allowed by the nation’s air quality laws, leaving the state’s environmental regulators cash strapped and unable to police polluters effectively, according to an analysis by the Environmental Integrity Project. The same report notes that the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality confirmed that companies were obeying their permits on fewer than half of the major polluters in this state between 2008 and 2009.

The EPA gave DEQ leeway during that time period due to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, but now it is time to raise the 2003 pollution fees to adjust for inflation and to insist upon a full assessment of every major polluter once every two years as required under the Clean Air act. Dueling reports among BP, a presidential panel and others continue to assess varying causes and solutions for the Gulf oil spill and its aftereffects. A new report by National Academy of Engineering says BP and others “failed to manage risks and didn’t even have a system in place to weigh safety against costs.” We like the suggestion that an independent technical authority, similar to those used in the submarine and nuclear fields, “would provide the critical checks and balances that were lacking.”

City, parish and state entities are considering ways to address various challenges in the air, on the ground and in the water throughout the state. A good example close to home will happen Dec. 15, when the Bossier Police Jury will hold a public hearing on a proposed noise ordinance. Although noise can come from anywhere, the proposal was prompted by excessive noise from permanent oil and natural gas structures and temporary operations in residential and industrial areas.

Such efforts and others dealing with rig accountability and regular inspections must be taken seriously. Even after memories of the Gulf spill pale or Haynesville Shale hoopla dissipates, there will still be oil and gas wells, pipelines and other infrastructure crisscrossing Louisiana lands and waters. All need to be maintained and monitored with sufficient oversight to assure the safety of our citizenry and the integrity of our environment.

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