Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner Wednesday called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to ensure that Lease Sale 220 for oil and natural gas development off the Virginia coast remains on track for 2011.

“Support among Virginia’s political leadership for the development of oil and gas resources is strong. Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, as well as members of the General Assembly from both parties, recognize the potential benefits to the Commonwealth and to our nation. Therefore it is understandable that recent media reports highlighting additional delays are a source of frustration to Virginia and to a nation,” wrote Webb and Warner, both Democrats, in their letter to Salazar.

One report said a Minerals Management Service (MMS) official told an audience in Texas last month that the agency had decided to indefinitely postpone the Virginia lease sale. But the Associated Press quoted an MMS spokeswoman this week as saying the agency has not made a decision to delay the 2011 sale. She noted that the MMS is reviewing whether to conduct the lease sale, and that Salazar is expected to announce his decision soon, as reported by the news service.

The planned Virginia lease sale for 2011 was included in the existing 2007-2012 five-year leasing program for the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which Interior published in 2007 following a three-year development process.

“We are deeply concerned about the department’s [apparent] decision to take this lease sale off the table — despite strong public support, and clear instructions from the federal court,” said Michael Whatley, executive director of the Southeast Energy Alliance. He contends this action by Interior would run afoul of the ruling last April by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which he said held that any changes to the existing five-year plan had to be limited to Alaska (see Daily GPI, April 20, 2009).

The Virginia lease sale, if it goes off as planned, would be the first lease sale conducted off the East Coast in nearly three decades (see Daily GPI, Nov. 13, 2008). The proposed sale area, which is at least 50 miles offshore and covers 2.9 million acres in water depths of 100 feet to 10,000 feet, is believed to contain 1.14 Tcf of natural gas and 130 million bbl of crude oil, according to MMS.

“We understand that additional steps must be completed for this sale to occur, including the Environmental Impact Statement for Sale 220, and potentially a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that would allow seismic surveys of the Atlantic OCS by private entities. But we would urge you to promptly commence these steps,” the senators said.

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