“Offshore drilling” on The Daily Caller

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian federal prosecutors said Wednesday they are seeking $10.6 billion in damages from U.S.-based Chevron Corp. because of environmental harm caused by an offshore oil leak. (more)

The Obama administration moved Tuesday to open more of the U.S. coast to offshore drilling but stopped far short of what energy exploration advocates wanted. (more)

Almost 190,000 jobs could be created by 2013 if offshore drilling returns to pre-spill levels, according to a study sponsored by two oil trade groups, the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA) and the American Petroleum Institute (API). (more)

The House passed the Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act Thursday, 243-179. Twenty-one Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and all but nine Republicans supported it. (more)

It’s nearly impossible to read, watch or listen to the news lately without updates on the uprisings in the Middle East. While some may view these events, tragic though they are, as removed from their day-to-day lives, their impact is in fact far too close to home. While nearly everyone agrees that this global tension further demonstrates the need to extricate the U.S. from unstable sources of energy abroad, our own government agencies have put in place policies that do the exact opposite. (more)

It’s almost exactly one year after the BP oil spill at the Macondo well, but according to a new CNN poll, most Americans support the expansion of offshore drilling.  The poll, released Tuesday, reveals that 69 percent of the public favor increased drilling in domestic waters. (more)

By the time coalition forces intervened in the Libyan war on March 19th, almost one month after the conflict started, Muammar Gaddafi had already killed 10,000 Libyans. (more)

As Ken Salazar heads to Capitol Hill Wednesday for the first of two days of hearings, the interior secretary will be facing pressure from all sides of the deep-water drilling debate. Despite his own personal agenda, Salazar is in many ways the middle man between two opposing forces pushing on him to act in different directions on issuing permits to drill in the Gulf of Mexico. (more)

Ken Salazar can no longer avoid issuing deep-water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. Though the secretary of the interior recently said he would not bow to political pressure on lifting the de facto drilling moratorium in the gulf, rumors that he would crack under that pressure were confirmed Monday evening when the first deep-water permit since the BP oil spill was issued. (more)

The Offshore Marine Service Association (OMSA) on Thursday launched a national campaign calling on President Obama to lift regulations that prevent deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The association represents more than 250 companies that own and operate U.S. flag service vessels. (more)

The first off-shore drilling company in the Gulf of Mexico to declare bankruptcy has blamed the government-imposed standstill for a shortage of shallow-water permits following the summer’s massive oil spill. Texas-based Seahawk Drilling, the second-largest shallow-water driller operating in the Gulf, announced it had filed for bankruptcy Friday and would be selling its remaining assets to Hercules Offshore. (more)

The presidential panel investigating the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has found no evidence so far that employees made decisions to put profit ahead of safety, Chief Counsel Fred Bartlit said today. (more)

Even as the administration backs off of its devastating offshore drilling moratorium, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu is standing firm in maintaining her hold on confirming Jacob Lew as the head of the Office of Management and Budget.  A Democrat herself, she could hardly be accused of spoiling for a political battle with the White House. Rather, it was the Obama administration itself that instigated the fight by sacrificing Louisiana jobs to political expediency with the issuance of the deepwater offshore energy moratorium. (more)

On Tuesday, the Obama administration finally announced the end of a politically motivated offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. The drilling ban, originally scheduled to be lifted in November, has been the subject of a torrent of criticism from Gulf area residents and leadership. (more)

Since the tragic disaster that was last spring’s Gulf oil spill, the public has been inundated by newspaper and television coverage that, while prolific, is at best superficial and generally one-sided.  It’s time to tell the truth. (more)

WASHINGTON—More than half of the oil that spilled into the sea from BP PLC’s blown-out well remains in the Gulf of Mexico and is a “highly durable material” that is now buried along the coast and on the sea floor, a Florida State University professor told a spill commission on Monday. (more)

Mobile, Alabama (CNN) — The head of the government agency that regulates offshore drilling said Tuesday that it is “unlikely” a six-month moratorium on the practice will be extended. (more)

The first part of a two-step process to plug BP’s busted Macondo well will be delayed briefly, Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the government’s spill response, said Friday. (more)

With the deepwater oil leak apparently capped after three months of gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, support for both offshore oil drilling and drilling further out in deepwater remains largely unchanged. Most voters also remain concerned about the potential environmental impact of new drilling. (more)

The Gulf oil spill is delivering a crushing blow to coastal residents and businesses, but Washington’s response threatens to place additional hardships on the Gulf region that could jeopardize our national energy security.  In the wake of the accident, President Obama first halted work in the deep water Gulf and then suspended 33 existing deepwater projects. A temporary pause to inspect these deepwater drilling rigs was warranted; an outright ban will cripple the already struggling Gulf Coast community. Now that the BP well has been capped and a permanent solution to the leak is on the way, the president should re-evaluate his hasty and politically motivated decision to issue a deepwater drilling moratorium. (more)