The Interior Department yesterday unveiled its proposal for expanding offshore oil and gas drilling, including a 2.9 million acre triangular area 50 miles or more off the coast of Virginia that could be leased by late 2011.
Members of Congress and environmental groups criticized the proposal, calling for increased energy efficiency and other measures to meet [...]

Groups in Alaska have sued the U.S. Interior Department to block an offshore oil and gas lease sale that residents say threatens Arctic marine wildlife and the traditional Inupiat Eskimo way of life.
The North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage on Tuesday, claim [...]

BRISTOL Bay in Alaska is known for its endangered whales and the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon. Thanks to President Bush, it also has been leased for oil and gas drilling.
The action clears the way for the Interior Department to open 5.6 million acres of fish-rich waters northwest of the Alaska Peninsula. Interior Secretary [...]

BRISTOL Bay in Alaska is known for its endangered whales and the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon. Thanks to President Bush, it also has been leased for oil and gas drilling.
The action clears the way for the Interior Department to open 5.6 million acres of fish-rich waters northwest of the Alaska Peninsula. Interior Secretary [...]

President Bush on Tuesday lifted a ban on new oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, a decision that angered environmentalists and could provoke a battle with the Democratic-controlled Congress over energy policy.
The 5.6 million acres of the bay on the west side of the Alaska Peninsula just north of the Aleutian Islands have [...]

President Bush lifted the drilling ban Tuesday for Alaska’s Bristol Bay, clearing the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development.
Alaska officials as well as local communities had asked for the ban to be lifted, but environmentalists have warned against drilling in the bay, which is also [...]

The Bush administration, bowing to pressure from environmental groups, has offered to scale back a plan to expand oil and natural gas drilling on Alaska’s North Slope.
The U.S. Interior Department yesterday asked a court in Anchorage to allow the planned Sept. 27 sale of about 8 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve to go [...]

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne received his first look Wednesday at BP Alaska’s pipeline corrosion that shut down some North Slope oil production, but said the problems should not prevent new drilling in some environmentally sensitive areas.
Kempthorne, on a three-day visit to Alaska’s oil fields, toured an oil processing facility operated by ConocoPhillips 60 miles west [...]

Federal land managers have opted to open the top of the Roan Plateau to oil and gas drilling without waiting until resources at the bottom of the plateau are tapped.
And that no-delay variation from an earlier preferred management plan has drawn a protest from Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., and a request that the new leasing [...]