Obama halts offshore drilling

[VaporTrail]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36865687/ns/us_news-environment/

 

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Friday directed that no new offshore oil drilling leases be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion that unleashed the massive spill threatening the Gulf Coast with major environmental damage.

 

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, meanwhile, declared a state of emergency in the state's Panhandle coastal counties because of the threat.

 

"The oil slick is generally moving in a northerly direction and threatens Florida's coast," Crist said in the order declaring the emergency in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, and Gulf counties.

 

...

 

Obama's declaration is not expected to have any immediate impact. Under the expanded leasing plan Obama announced a month ago, the first offshore leases would be issued off the Virginia coast in 2012 at the earliest.

 

It is still unclear what caused the explosion on the BP rig more than 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. About 5,000 barrels of oil a day, 0r 210,000 gallons, are estimated to be spewing from three well leaks on the ocean floor.

 

...

 

BP, for its part, said Friday it would compensate all those affected by the leak.

 

"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that," BP CEO Tony Hayward told Reuters.

 

The cost to the fishing industry in Louisiana could be $2.5 billion while the impact on tourism along Florida's Paradise coast could be $3 billion, Neil McMahon, analyst at investment firm Bernstein, said in a research note on Friday.

 

...

 

The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez in scope. It imperils hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life.

 

**Warning: Tree-Hugger Mode Engage**

 

This f*cking sucks. What a sad way to see some of the most beautiful natural areas go. Another reason we should get off fossil fuels.

[calfoxwc]

Can't drill on stable land...

 

but they let them drill for OIL in the OCEAN?

 

Is that like they gave the oil industry enough rope,

 

and told them to put it around their neck....

 

and waited for them to fall off the tree branch?

 

I don't get it. Maybe it's just me. @@