Daily Archives: July 5, 2017

SHARPSBURG, Md. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said that he wants the federal government to increase its income from offshore oil and natural gas drilling to pay for budget gaps in national parks.

Zinke told reportersWednesdaythat new royalty and fee payments from drilling can go a long way toward solving the more than $11 billion maintenance backlog at the National Park Service (NPS), as well as mitigate the effects of the $360 million the Trump administration is proposing to slash from the agencys annual budget.

He has mentioned the plan in recent weeks both to defend the administrations budget and to support his desire to increase offshore drilling, a plan that could include drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

He said the Obama administration missed out on the potential revenue, pointing to the fact that the Interior Department brought in $2.6 billion from offshore drilling last year, compared with $18.1 billion in 2008.

Zinke said he is evaluating ways to increase income from offshore drilling as part of a major review of Interiors royalties and revenues.

Across the board, were looking at revenue, to make sure we catch up, and my priority is the infrastructure in our park system. Weve got to protect our parks, he said.

A small portion of offshore drilling revenue goes into the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is used to buy parkland and for related purposes.

But the rest of the money goes to the general Treasury, and changes to that system, including directing the funds to go to infrastructure, would have to get congressional approval.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Mark WarnerMark WarnerInterior chief: New offshore drilling funds should pay for parks Investigators looking into possible Russia collusion with pro-Trump websites: report Key Senate Dem expects clarity on Russia probe in a couple months MORE (D-Va.) and Rep. Derek KilmerDerek KilmerInterior chief: New offshore drilling funds should pay for parks Our national parks need updates; Congress can help House Dems: Administration ignoring hundreds of oversight requests MORE (D-Wash.) would do that, first directing $50 million a year to a park infrastructure fund and then slowly increasing to $500 million.

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Interior chief: New offshore drilling funds should pay for parks - The Hill

IOWA CITY, Iowa After Robert Rhodes collected a Wisconsin Lottery jackpot that had been rigged by his friend, he used the windfall for an investment scheme that produced another wave of undeserved government money, court records show.

Rhodes, an accomplice in a scandal that has shaken state lotteries, recently explained under oath how he used the $783,000 payout to receive an additional $180,000 in bogus tax refunds. The Texas businessman sent his lottery winnings offshore to buy a phony insurance policy for a personal corporation that never did any business except receive the lottery prize. He then claimed the policy as a tax-deductible "business expense."

The upshot: Rhodes received roughly $150,000 from the U.S. government and $36,200 from Wisconsin in tax refunds on the lottery payout. But in an ironic twist, the St. Lucia-based insurer where Rhodes sent his cash would later be accused of duping investors and, in Rhodes' words, "abscond" with a chunk of the loot.

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Lottery rigging accomplice used payout for offshore tax scam - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Federal regulators are giving people two more weeks to comment on plans for permitting seismic testing offshore because of the deluge of comments already received. Drill-or-don't-drill has become a controversy.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has received thousands of comments, a news release said.

"These requests indicated that additional time was needed to consider more fully the information supporting the proposals and to provide comments on the proposed authorizations," said NOAA spokeswoman Kate Brogan.

"Multiple commenters indicated a need for additional time to review the proposal to consider the information more fully and provide comments," she said.

The new deadline for commenting is July 21. Email comments to ITP.Laws@noaa.gov or submit electronically by going to http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits and following the links.

Five companies have filed permit requests to explore for oil and gas, and all of them want to explore at least part of the waters off South Carolina. The National Marine Fisheries Service in June issued the rules for how the tests would take place regarding the safety of marine mammals. Those rules are up for public comment.

Seismic testing entails firing powerfully loud sonic guns underwater every 16 seconds to read echoes from the bottom geology. The tests take place over miles of ocean for months at a time.

Industry representatives say it's been done for a half-century without any demonstrated real world harm. Controlled studies have indicated it harms sea life as basic as vital zooplankton food organisms.

Opposition to the drilling and testing has grown to millions of East Coast residents, more than 120 municipalities, 1,200 elected officials, 41,000 businesses and a half million fishing families.

For many people, the fight over drilling cuts to the heart of coastal life, where interests are divided between exploring for potential the economic benefit of fossil fuels to restricting exploration to protect marine life and a billion-dollar tourism economy.

Reach Bo Petersen Reporter at Facebook, @bopete on Twitter or 1-843-937-5744.

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NOAA gives more time to comment on offshore seismic tests - Charleston Post Courier

Ocean City may bill itself as a year-round resort, but its no secret that the Fourth of July marks the start of the real season the eight or nine weeks of booked summer rentals, hotels at capacity, overflowing restaurants and shoulder-to-shoulder sunbathers on the beach that define the local economy. It is somewhat ironic that this past Monday also marked the beginning of Ocean Citys last chance to plead with the Trump administration to spare its tourism industry from the grave threat posed by off-shore drilling.

In late April, President Donald Trump signed an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to reverse policies developed during the waning months of the Obama administration protecting the Atlantic Oceans outer continental shelf from oil and gas exploration. Last week, the administration officially released the result of that executive order, a new five-year plan to open up those federally-controlled waters to the petroleum industry, a frightening prospect to the millions of Americans who vacation on, own property along or whose livelihoods depend on Atlantic beaches. The notion that the tourism economy and the billions of dollars invested in it might be compromised by non-sustainable oil and gas exploration is absurd. But with Mondays publication of the regulations in the Federal Register, the 45-day clock has started: Americans have until August 17 to express their opinion to Interior officials.

Matthew Daly and Josh Boak

Opening up coastal drilling is deeply and universally unpopular in beach towns far beyond Ocean City. Memories of the Deepwater Horizon, the 2010 BP oil spill that involved nearly 5 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico that devastated fisheries and tourism and ultimately cost that company more than $42 billion in payouts, are still fresh. So is the Exxon Valdez, the 1989 oil tanker that hit a reef in Prince William Sound and left 1,300 miles of coastline drenched in crude oil. With coastal communities already dealing with pollution and compromised water quality and fisheries, why worsen the problem when it will neither produce the jobs nor the energy independence that the Trump administration claims?

Indeed, trouble is already brewing with the Trump administrations earlier approval of seismic testing for underground oil and gas deposits in the Atlantic (the comment period for which ends July 6). Soon, boats towing enormous air guns pointed at the ocean are expected to be dispatched across thousands of square miles of potential drilling sites from New Jersey to Florida. Experts fear the impact these sonic blasts will have on marine life including dolphins, sea turtles, whales and migrating schools of fish. Why? As a 2016 study by the National Ocean Economics Program at Middlebury College pointed out, jobs in the U.S. coastal economy depend more on living resources than oil and gas exploration. Fracking and horizontal drilling technology have already given the U.S. a record boost in oil and gas production from inland sources, including the nearby Marcellus Shale basin.

And its not just losing tourists that has waterfront communities worried. If President Trump continues to lead the U.S. away from global norms on climate change and allows non-sustainable exploitation of fossil fuels that contribute heavily to the problem, the threat of rising sea levels alone could doom towns like Ocean City or at least force them to erect major sea walls or relocate to higher ground. How quaint that Ocean City officials were just weeks ago debating the merits of off-shore wind turbines and whether tourists might be annoyed by their miniature appearance on the horizon. Globs of crude oil stuck to beaches and marine life and coastal flooding are considerably worse hardships.

The Trump administration might ignore public opinion, but Marylanders ought to make their voices heard anyway. They will certainly find a great deal of company including in states like South Carolina where Republicans hold political sway. Gov. Larry Hogan has been strangely silent on a matter that ought to be a no-brainer for him. An estimated 90,000 jobs and $5.4 billion in gross domestic product can be traced to Marylands coastal economy. Being pro-business requires standing up for those jobs as publicly and firmly as possible so that nobody in the White House or Congress gets the idea that Maryland is the least bit undecided about the wisdom of offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling.

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Offshore drilling is a loser - Baltimore Sun