Hey East Coasters, did you know VA was an Off-Shore MMS lease in progress:

Virginia Lease Sale 220

The MMS has initiated the first step for a potential lease sale offshore Virginia. The sale will be held no earlier than 2011. The MMS has published a Call for Information and Interest/Nominations and Notice of Intent to Prepare an EIS (Call/NOI) for Lease Sale 220 in the Federal Register on November 13, 2008. The comment period closed January 13, 2009. The area covered by the Call/NOI is about 2.9 million acres offshore Virginia in the Mid-Atlantic Planning Area, and is at least 50 miles offshore.
The MMS estimates that this area may contain 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

This Call/NOI is the first step in the information gathering, evaluation, and public participation process. Lease Sale 220 offshore Virginia is scheduled for 2011 under the current Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) leasing Program 2007-2012. The area was included in the 5-Year plan at the request of the Commonwealth of Virginia.


http://www.mms.gov/offshore/220.htm

May want to voice your opinions about this!

The MMS just rubberstamps anything the oil companies want,
including no safety regulations.

Technologies can fail. Industry experts can't be trusted. Why on hold? This needs to be DEAD!

-snip


But Obama's proposal came with significant limits.

Energy companies would not be able to drill on the U.S. West Coast or in Northeast waters, but would be able to explore off the Atlantic Coast from Delaware to Florida and 125 miles beyond Florida's shore in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.


-snip

The Interior Department will conduct the first offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Atlantic Ocean in more than two decades in November 2011. The sale cover some 3 million acres in a triangular area 50 miles off the Virginia coast. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said it could be delayed until 2012 to finish environmental reviews.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62T06520100331


New Offshore Drilling Projects ON HOLD, White House Says


Obama ordered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to report within 30 days on what new technologies are needed to tighten safeguards against oil spills from deep water drilling rigs.

"We are going to make sure that any leases going forward have those safeguards," said Obama at a White House Rose Garden event.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/new-offshore-drilling-pro_n_558313.html

For now, no new drilling.

I am curious as to how many leases BP has both in the Gulf and other offshore areas.
I know they reported something like 30% of their revenues come from USA coastal rigs.

will have something to say about this.

Maybe they don't have that "we are all connected" thing down yet?

let's move on to Democratic Socialism!!

This is a ridiculous "King-of-the-Hill" system intended to move the wealth and

resources of every nation from the many to the few.

Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime --

And there is little difference between the oil industry and the Mafia!

Thanks for the info!!