Just in case someone hadn’t gotten the message, Ohio Gov. Robert Taft has issued an executive order, good through the end of his term in office in 2006, prohibiting the issuance of state permits to drill for oil and gas in Lake Erie.

It’s not like the pronouncement, promised during his political campaign, interrupts a thriving industry. U.S. producers have long been forced to stand idly by while their Canadian counterparts drilled thousands of wells on the Canadian side of the lake. The governor’s order simply reinforces earlier restrictions, including the more recent ban on drilling on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes through fiscal 2005 that was put in place by the U.S. Congress.

But it’s the fact that the public had no chance for input into the decision that rankles members of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA). “There has been no public debate over the use of significant resources owned by the public,” said Thomas Stewart, executive vice president of OOGA. “The public has been denied the right to even think of using those resources.”

Stewart said the Canadians have drilled thousands of wells without damage to the environment, but the governor “has been scared by fanatical environmental claims.” New drilling techniques can eliminate most potential hazards, but the possibilities have never been explored. He questioned whether it is “proper public policy to ban even consideration of the use of public property for the public good.”

Taft’s proclamation cited the state’s reliance on Lake Erie “for its cultural, environmental, recreational, and aesthetic values,” and the nearly $2 billion generated annually by the lake-based boating recreation, travel, tourism and fishing industries. Producers claim these uses can co-exist with tapping the oil and gas resources, particularly through the use of directional drilling.

Stewart said Ohio is a microcosm of what’s happening nationwide with prohibitions on tapping public resources off the East and West Coasts, parts of the Gulf Coast, Alaska and onshore in the Rocky Mountains. The public is made to pay more for energy coming from foreign sources, but has no say in whether to develop its own, he said.

The governor’s executive order prohibits the “Ohio Department of Natural Resources from issuing any permit, license or lease allowing for the withdrawal or production of oil and gas from or under the bed of Lake Erie.”

©Copyright 2003 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.