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Posts Tagged ‘Dept. of the Interior’

MARK CLAYTON, The Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2009
With demands on US ocean resources control growing quickly, the Obama administration today outlined a new comprehensive ocean management plan to guide federal agencies in restoring and protecting a badly stressed US coastal and ocean environment.
Today’s policy shift proposed by the president’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force [...]

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Excerpts from Environmental Leader, April 10, 2009
US Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told participants at a summit meeting “that U.S. offshore areas hold enormous potential for wind energy development in all coastal metropolitan centers, and the wind potential off the coasts of the lower 48 states could exceed electricity demand in the U.S.
The [...]

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Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, July 26, 2009
Just north of the Colorado-New Mexico border, in the sunny expanses of my native San Luis Valley, America’s clean energy future is taking root.
Under President Obama’s leadership, four tracts of land in southern Colorado and two dozen tracts across six Western states may soon be supplying [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article in the Mendocino Beacon, June 4, 2009
Ocean Power Technologies’ subsidiary California Wave Energy Partners in it’s “wave energy project proposed off Cape Mendocino has surrendered its Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permit, making two major companies that have abandoned the area in the past two weeks.
The moves come at [...]

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LES BLUMENTHAL, The Bellingham Herald, May 30, 2009
The Obama administration has proposed a 25% cut in the research and development budget for one of the most promising renewable energy sources in the Northwest – wave and tidal energy. At the same time the White House sought an 82% increase in solar power research funding, [...]

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MARK CLAYTON, The Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 2009
Three miles off the craggy, wave-crashing coastline near Humboldt Bay, California, deep ocean swells roll through a swath of ocean that is soon to be the site of the nation’s first major wave energy project.

Like other renewable energy technology, ocean energy generated by waves, tidal currents or steady offshore [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, April 23, 2009
In Octoberr 2008 Grays Harbor Ocean Energy applied for seven Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permits for projects located in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 to 25 miles offshore off the coasts of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and in the Pacific Ocean about 5 to 30 miles off the coasts [...]

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COLIN SULLIVAN, The New York Times, April 14, 2009
Palo Alto — Technology for tapping ocean waves, tides and rivers for electricity is far from commercial viability and lagging well behind wind, solar and other fledgling power sectors, a panel of experts said last week during a forum here on climate change and marine ecosystems.
While the [...]

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H. JOSEF HEBERT, The Associated Press, March 16, 2009
While the Obama administration has touted offshore renewable energy development, a turf fight between two federal agencies has stymied the government’s ability to issue rules needed to approve wind energy projects off America’s coasts.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday the infighting has got to stop.
“It will be resolved,” Salazar said [...]

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Washington Post Editorial, February 12, 2009
Interior Secretary Salazar Keeps his Options Open on Offshore Drilling 
Here’s the ultimate midnight regulation: On the very last day of the Bush administration, the Interior Department proposed a new five-year plan for oil and gas leasing on the outer continental shelf. All hearings and other meetings on the scope of [...]

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SUSAN CHAMBERS, The World, February 3, 2009
Coos Bay — The announcement came as a surprise to everyone.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Thursday order issuing a preliminary permit for a 200- to 400-buoy wave energy project off of Newport shocked Ocean Power Technologies leaders as well as the public.
“It’s a project, a site that is not [...]

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STEPHEN POWER, The Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2009
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated Tuesday that the Obama Administration could be open to expanded offshore drilling and is considering doing away with a controversial program that allows oil companies to pay in kind for oil and natural gas taken from public lands.
Salazar inherited a Bush Administration [...]

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Let Your Voice Be Heard by March 23, 2009
by MendoCoastCurrent and pointarenabasin
Beginning January 22, 2009 and ending on March 23, 2009, a 60-day Public Comment Period opened regarding new offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling in the pristine waters off northern California.
And while this is a multi-step process and before things are cast in stone, NOW [...]

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JANE KAY, San Francisco Chronicle, January 17, 2009
The U.S. Interior Department, acting in President Bush’s final days in office, proposed on Friday opening up 130 million acres off of California’s coast to drilling for oil and natural gas, including areas off Humboldt and Mendocino counties and from San Luis Obispo south to San Diego.
After a [...]

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MICHAEL FALCONE, The New York Times, January 16, 2009
On January 15, 2009, Senator Ken Salazar pledged to “clean up the mess” at the Interior Department if he is confirmed as the next chief of the department, which has been plagued by ethics scandals.
Mr. Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, also said he shared President Obama’s commitment to ending the country’s [...]

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JANE KAY, The San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 2008
The federal government is taking steps that may open California’s fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship [...]

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JOHN M. BRODER, The New York Times, December 18, 2008
President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Interior Department, Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, will inherit an agency demoralized by years of scandal, political interference and mismanagement.
He must deal with the sharp tension between those who seek to exploit public lands for energy, minerals and recreation and those [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, November 17, 2008
Announcements and short biographies of Obama’s Team Leads that oversee renewable energy policy development and associated agencies.
Energy and Natural Resources Team Lead
David J. Hayes is a member of the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group responsible for the energy and natural resources agencies. He is former Global Chair of the Environment, [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, October 16, 2008
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) claimed that it has jurisdiction over hydroelectric projects located on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), pointing to laws that define its role.
FERC addressed the jurisdictional question, raised by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Mineral Management Service (MMS), in the context of a rehearing order on [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article at the Mendocino Beacon, September 4, 2008
PG&E decided last week not to be the national test case for the Minerals Management Service’s wave energy program.
Just two weeks earlier, the utility officially filed paperwork to pursue those same far offshore wave energy leases. None of the filings have yet been provided [...]

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Environmental News Service, July 29, 2008
The governors of California, Oregon and Washington Tuesday announced the details of their plan to address ocean and coastal management issues such as polluted runoff, oil spills and marine garbage along the West Coast.
The West Coast Governors’ Ocean Action Plan is the result of a 2006 agreement signed by the [...]

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EnergyCurrent.com, July 30, 2008
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dick Kempthorne has started the development of a new oil and natural gas leasing program for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The action could give the next administration a head start in expanding energy production from federal offshore jurisdictions, including some areas where a congressional moratorium has [...]

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DAVID R. BAKER, The San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2008
The U.S. Interior Department ratcheted up the pressure on Congress Wednesday to open more of the country’s coastline to offshore oil drilling, a move petroleum companies have sought for decades.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said his department will lay the groundwork for selling undersea oil-drilling leases on [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 9, 2008
ACT NOW! – ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that will regulate alternative energy production activities and alternate uses of existing facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 8, 2008

Act Now! Related ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC – The Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that it is proceeding with the consultation and analyses necessary to move toward the issuance of limited leases under its interim policy for authorizing alternative energy data collection [...]

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