Markey Statement on Obama Administration's New Oil Drilling Project

December 1, 2010 - Today the Obama administration will declare a new offshore drilling Project for the years 2012-2017. Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs key energy panels in the House of Representatives, issued the following statement:

"Following the biggest oil spill in our nation's history, this Project shows the Obama administration has heeded the lessons of the BP disaster. This Project will move America forward on a prudent path until we can ensure that when an oil company drills ultra-deep, it is ultra-safe.

"Opening up wide swaths of our coasts to oil drilling before we put the proper regulatory measures in place would have been a mistake. We can't put thousands of miles of coastline at risk for another spill when the oil companies are still not prepared to respond, and all for oil that would make an economically insignificant impact a decade or more from now.

"This drilling Project is only part of a comprehensive offshore energy Project which the Obama administration is developing, including safer forms of energy like wind and wave. Instead of looking deeper and deeper for the last remaining drops of oil, we can harness the wind that whips over the waves, and the energy from the swells off our coasts. Before we are swept away by the tide of international clean energy competition, we should push the limits of clean energy innovation, not the limits of deepwater drilling."