“Petroleum production” on The Daily Caller

The policy debate rages over fracking, a process for extracting oil and/or natural gas from rock. (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)

The Obama administration on Tuesday plans to announce that it is lifting the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling, after putting in place new rules intended to tighten safety. (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)

HOUSTON — Five months after the BP oil spill, a federal moratorium still prohibits new deepwater drilling in the American waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And under longstanding federal law, drilling is also banned near the coast of Florida. (more)

An interagency report released last week by the Obama administration underestimated the number of jobs lost because of the deepwater drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico by about half, according to a study released Tuesday by the American Energy Alliance. (more)

BP’s ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to be permanently sealed by Sunday. (more)

At a time when the economy is reeling and national unemployment hovers just under 10%, the President and Congressional leaders are ignoring the wishes of the American people; seemingly working overtime to drive up energy costs and send jobs overseas by punishing our own energy industry. The President’s insistence on maintaining a ban on deepwater exploration and drilling for oil and gas along with the de facto ban on near shore activity is wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast’s economy and could easily impact national energy prices this winter. (more)

The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration’s initial six-month moratorium on deepwater oil-drilling dealt the government another blow on Wednesday. (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)

Oil-state and centrist Democrats may unveil a compromise Tuesday designed to set a path forward on legislation responding to the Gulf of Mexico spill this year. (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)

A US Congressional committee has agreed measures that would ban BP from new offshore drilling for seven years. The House committee on natural resources voted in favour of precluding companies with poor safety records from offshore oil exploration permits. (more)

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ABOARD THE RESOLUTE, 40 miles off Louisiana — Workers on surface ships continued to flare gas and oil on Wednesday at the site of BP’s runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico after officials announced that a critical pressure test on the well would be postponed. (more)

The White House’s “National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling” finished its first set of hearings Tuesday with its chairmen indicating they would encourage the administration to rethink its moratorium on offshore drilling. Testimony and public comments from locals slammed not only the moratorium, but also federal obstructionism on key engineering projects and the use of one chemical oil dispersant. (more)

The Interior Department has issued a new offshore drilling moratorium that is different, but not very different, from the one blocked recently by a New Orleans federal judge. (more)

The Obama administration’s lawyers claim that economic harm must be disregarded despite the devastation of the Gulf Coast economy by the president’s moratorium on deepwater drilling:  Protecting the environment is the only issue that matters, they say. (more)