Bush

A group of Alaskan natives and local governments warned President Bush Tuesday not to be fooled by others “masquerading” as locals who are against lifting the drilling moratorium in the North Aleutian Basin, which includes Bristol Bay, in southwestern Alaska. Reports that the president plans to issue an executive order lifting the ban on drilling in the area have prompted letters from several coalitions with opposing views on the matter.

The Bush administration has called on a federal court in Anchorage, AK, to allow a proposed oil and natural lease sale in the northeast and northwest planning areas of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPRA) to proceed on Sept. 27, disputing the court’s ruling earlier this month that it had failed to adequately assess the environmental effects of development in the area.

The Bush administration favors opening up additional oil and natural gas resources for development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and would support an “appropriately structured revenue-sharing” plan with energy-friendly coastal states, an Interior Department told a House committee Wednesday.

President Bush on Friday announced his intent to nominate an Interior Department advisor to be the federal overseer of the Alaska natural gas pipeline until its completion.

As courtroom pundits saw it, Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay’s turn on the witness stand would be a no brainer. Well-known Houston philanthropist and Bush crony, many of Lay’s close associates and friends have called him a disarming, affable and somewhat avuncular sort of fellow, likely to remember small details about his employees’ personal lives and not prone to micromanaging the business. He was expected to be the calm and steady “nice” guy, unlike co-defendant and ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, whose brash personality has often preceded him.

The Bush administration’s proposal to hold a 2007 sale in a two-million-acre section of a natural gas-rich offshore area known as Lease Sale 181 is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough, officials from six offshore groups said last week.

The Bush administration’s proposal to hold a 2007 sale in a two-million-acre section of a natural gas-rich offshore area known as Lease Sale 181 is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough, said officials from six offshore groups.

An alliance of five CEOs from major natural gas production companies, industrial gas consumers and gas distributors urged the American public, U.S. Congress and the Bush administration Tuesday to open up more public land in the United States to natural gas drilling and reduce the backlog of gas drilling permit applications at the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher on Thursday applauded President Bush’s selection of Philip D. Moeller and Jon Wellinghoff to fill the vacancies at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.