Bush signs law removing Bristol Bay Congressional restrictions

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News Publisher & Managing Editor

President George W. Bush signed legislation the week of Nov. 10 that removed the U.S. Congress’s objections to oil and gas drilling in the federal waters of Alaska’s Bristol Bay. However, the Bush administration’s moratorium on Bristol Bay leasing is still in effect.

Congress has included language in the annual Department of the Interior appropriations bill since the early 1980s that prevents the department from conducting leasing in areas under federal moratorium. The Bristol Bay language was excluded this year in the $20.2 billion appropriations bill which funds Interior’s budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

“At the request of the Bristol Bay Native Corp., Sen. Stevens did not include that moratorium this year,” Melanie Alvord, press secretary for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told Petroleum News July 17. The Minerals Management Service handles leasing on the outer continental shelf.MMS Alaska Region Director John Goll told Petroleum News Nov. 14 that there has been no word from the Bush administration about lifting the presidential moratorium. But if the state of Alaska wants it lifted, the state “would have to ask us to petition the president to lift the moratorium,” Goll said.

He said MMS “would work with any state that wants to lift drilling moratoriums.”