CAPE COD, MA (January 26, 2009) – Four days before President Barack Obama took his oath of office, the Bush administration announced what some environmentalists would consider a death sentence for Georges Bank, one of the world’s richest fishing grounds.
On Jan. 16, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service released a draft report that proposed offering oil and gas leases in offshore areas from Canada to Alaska. These included some areas, including the submerged plateau east of Cape Cod known as Georges Bank, that were formerly closed under congressional and presidential restrictions. Those restrictions were lifted after President Bush ended a presidential ban on drilling in July and the Senate failed to renew a congressional moratorium that lapsed in October.
The northern Atlantic region, from New Jersey to Canada, had been under annual congressional drilling moratoriums since 1983 and presidential restrictions since 1990. Although the House of Representatives did pass a new moratorium last fall by a wide margin, the Senate did not have time to vote on a similar bill.
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