Don Briggs, President – LOGA (Louisiana Oil & Gas Association)

On Thursday of this past week, Sec of the Department of Interior, Ken Salazar held the second of a series of public hearings at Tulane University. “The purpose of these meetings is to have an open, honest conversation with the American people to solicit the best information possible about an offshore energy plan,” said Ken Salazar. The first meeting was held in Atlantic City, N.J. and focused mostly on wind energy and the future of the Atlantic OCS. The New Orleans meeting focused on the Gulf of Mexico.

What is this really all about? It’s about four hearings around the country, spending taxpayer’s dollars to hear the obvious, and to give us all the illusion that the President and his Administration are listening. Politics, not discussion, prevails at the meetings. The New Orleans presentation catered to a predominately pro-drilling crowd. “In Atlantic City we had a lot more people talking about renewable energy,” Salazar told journalists after the hearing. In Louisiana “it is not at all surprising for me that we have many advocates for oil and gas production because it’s part of the life of the Gulf Coast,” he said.

Senator Mary Landrieu was the only US Senator present and the first to speak after Secretary Salazar. She took the opportunity to talk about the President’s Budget Proposal and the taxes he wishes to place on the oil and gas industry. Landrieu said the President’s plan would tax independent operators, not the large integrated companies, out of business and thousands of jobs would be lost. Salazar did acknowledge the energy industry uproar against the $31 billion in taxes proposed by the administration, “it’s a hot issue, we will continue to look at it,” said Salazar. And what does that mean? The rhetoric from the administration is by no means settling.

The oil and gas industry testified that it was time to lift the moratorium that has been in place since 1981. President Bush lifted the moratorium prior to the end of his administration, only to have President Obama put a hold on it. President Obama has charged Salazar to explore the potential for offshore energy production and to return a comprehensive energy plan to the President’s desk. If Salazar recommends the OCS to be open for wind energy and not just for drilling, we may then be able to enter the Eastern Gulf in the near future.

The greens (environmentalists) testified against oil and gas exploration saying offshore drilling polluted the beaches and oceans. Representatives of the Sierra Club attacked industry on the spills that occurred during the hurricanes of the past few years. “We had 8 million gallons of oil spilled post-Katrina — much of it was from land-based rigs,” Darryl Male-Wiley said, citing Coast Guard reports. “We think there needs to be additional research on the hurricane survivability of oil rigs and onshore infrastructure.” You cannot help but wonder the impact of 100ft. waves on wind turbines.

Salazar said, “We’re in the information-gathering stage, so I’m learning a lot”. That’s the good news.

Mid-year 2008 $4 gasoline produced a different attitude toward drilling in the Eastern Gulf off of Florida’s coast, Floridian’s were saying, “please come and drill”, however, as prices have declined, so has the enthusiasm for exploration off Florida’s coast. Now it’s back to, “not in my backyard”. What a difference $2 can make.

Congressman Bill Cassidy best echoed the sentiments of the oil and gas industry- “Although it may look like it could be a substitute to oil and gas production, reality is that renewable energy is just a fraction of the energy the nation needs.”