By the OGJ Online Staff
WASHINGTON, DC, June 28, 2001 -- The US House of Representatives Thursday approved an amendment to prohibit federal funds being spent to issue permits allowing drilling in the Great Lakes or its tributaries.
It also voted narrowly, 213-210, to block the construction of the Gulfstream gas pipeline project from Mobile Bay, Ala., across the Gulf of Mexico to central Florida.
The measures were part of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill, HR 2311, which allocates $23.7 billion in fiscal 2002 for programs in the Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers, and some Interior Department agencies.
Gulfstream
Industry and congressional leaders said the Gulfstream amendment was largely symbolic and likely would be deleted when House and Senate conferees meet on the legislation. The Senate has yet to take up the bill.
House Appropriations Chairman Bill Young (R-Fla.) opposed the provision, offered by his subcommittee chairman Sonny Callahan (R-Ala.) (OGJ Online, June 26 2001).
Callahan and his Alabama colleagues sought the amendment in retaliation for an earlier vote by the House to block offshore federal lease Sale 181, planned for December.
Alabama supported the eastern Gulf of Mexico lease sale but Florida managed to defer it indefinitely, although the tracts were more than 100 miles from its coastline.
"If Florida deems it does not need the resources that lease sale would bring, then it doesn't need a pipeline either," a Callahan spokesman said.
A Gulfstream spokesman said the attempt is symbolic, because construction has begun and all permits are in hand.
Gulfstream Natural Gas System LLC is building the 753-mile pipeline that will be the first gas transportation system built to serve Florida in more than 40 years.
Slated for completion by June 2002, the $1.6 billion Gulfstream system will have 1.1-bcfd capacity. It will run from Mississippi and Alabama across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida (OGJ Online, May 31, 2001).
Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) criticized Florida congressmen. "They shot down Lease Sale 181 even though it holds billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. The Florida delegation ignored the important role these reserves could have in lowering our national dependence on foreign sources."
DeLay said, "They won't let us find more in the gulf, but Florida sure isn't resisting the trend toward natural gas. Florida's natural gas demand for electricity will double over the next 20 years."
He said that's why Florida want the gas line -- through the same gulf waters that Florida wants ff-limits to exploration.
Great Lakes
The House also approved by voice vote an amendment designed to block drilling in the Great Lakes or rivers feeding them.
Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.) offered the amendment denying funding for federal agencies, particularly the US Army Corps of Engineers, for issuing permits needed for drilling operations.
Great Lakes states actually would issue drilling permits. The Corps would issue permits related to navigation, such as dredging channels.
Bonior's amendment would prohibit federal funds from being spent to issue any permit or lease for the purpose of drilling to extract or explore for oil or gas from the land beneath any of the five Great Lakes and Lake Saint Clair between Michigan and Ontario. It also covered the St. Mary's, St. Clair, Detroit, Niagara, and St. Lawrence rivers.
Amendment sponsors could not clarify what impact their measure could have on any existing leases or the oversight role the states would play.
In Michigan, a few wells have been drilled directionally from the shoreline or islands. Recently, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources proposed to resume leasing after a state science board determined that drilling posed little or no risk.
Gas is produced from a number of wells on the Canadian side of Lake Erie, but oil production is not allowed.