From the Green Energy Reporter

President Obama is set to announce an unprecedented expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling on the Atlantic Coast (as far north as Delaware) as well as the Florida Gulf Coast and parts of Alaska. This is a big shift to the right for the Obama administration and major reversal of the country’s energy policy.

The president is expected to make an announcement today at 11:00 AM ET. Obama will specifically lift a long-time moratorium banning oil exploration on the East Coast and will open 167 million acres for oil and gas exploration and eventually, production.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar tells Bloomberg News that oil exploration could start this summer.

The news  will obviously anger Obama’s environmental base, which will point out that on the campaign trail, while his opponents rode the “drill, baby, drill” wave, he argued that expanding domestic oil and gas production would not lower energy costs (at the time a barrel was trading at triple digits).

The Obama administration have spinned the announcement as a natural extension of its “pan-energy policy.” It says that energy of dependence can’t be achieved with renewable energy alone and must include carbon-loaded energies as well nuclear. A few weeks ago the President greenlighted $8 billion in loan guarantees to support the construction of new reactors in Georgia.

Politically the move makes sense. The administration knows that opposition to cap-and-trade in Congress is deep and bipartisan. Expanding oil and gas drilling could actually help gather the votes needed to get a comprehensive climate change and energy bill WITH a cap-and-trade provision onto the president’s desk, hopefully this year.

Read the original article HERE