Obama to open offshore areas to oil drilling, New York Times reports

Published 9:27 pm Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31energy.html?emc=na