WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 27, 2014 - Today, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) released the following statement after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) released its final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) allowing for seismic surveys in the Mid and South Atlantic Coasts.
"After more than five years, the Department of the Interior has finally reached an important milestone that paves the way to allow for new seismic surveying in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf. New data has not been available for this area in over 40 years and in that same time period, resource estimates for the Gulf of Mexico have only grown. It is my hope that the Bureau may soon be able to move forward expeditiously on the nine applications that are currently pending so that we may safely discover the true nature of the American energy resources in this area and generate greater commercial interest for potential lease sales in the future. Opening new areas of our nation’s OCS is vital to creating new American jobs, lowering energy prices, and making America more energy secure. While it has taken far too long, this step today will help put America on a path to open new areas to more American energy production."
