On Wednesday, January 28, as required by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Abigail Ross Hopper announced the next step in the development of our nation's Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022. The Draft Proposed Program (DPP) includes 14 potential lease sales in eight planning areas – 10 sales in the Gulf of Mexico, three off the coast of Alaska, and one in a portion of the Mid- and South Atlantic, which includes areas off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The new proposal, coming just two days after the President of the United States announced he would propose designating most of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, also seeks to block access to 9.8 million acres of oil-rich areas of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska’s North Slope to protect what White House officials described as a pristine and particularly fragile Arctic ecosystem.

The draft includes a new approach in the Gulf of Mexico by proposing two annual lease sales in the Western, Central and a portion of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico that is not subject to Congressional moratoria. This is a shift from the traditional approach of separate sales in the Western and Central Gulf each year.

In the Atlantic, the potential lease sale would require a 50-mile coastal buffer to minimize multiple use conflicts, such as those from the Department of Defense and NASA activities, renewable energy activities, commercial and recreational fishing, critical habitat needs for wildlife and other environmental concerns. The proposal does not include any drilling off the coast of Florida.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates that the Atlantic outer continental shelf contains 1.32 to 9.23 barrels of technically recoverable oil and between 11.81 to 67.69 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas, based on 1980's seismic surveys.

Presently, there are no active oil and gas leases in the Atlantic offshore territory. Development of an oil industry would result in years of development and job growth, and allow the affected regions to diversify their economies and energy resources. An oil industry will also generate potential significant new tax revenue. Critics and environmentalists, however, contend that development and risk of oil spills could jeopardize coastal communities,  in addition to tourism and fishing industries.