Facing continued public unhappiness about gasoline prices, US President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up US oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska’s coast, and holding more frequent lease sales in a US federal petroleum reserve in Alaska.
Obama said yesterday that the measures “make good sense” and will help reduce US consumption of imported oil in the long term. However, he acknowledged anew that they won’t help to immediately bring down gasoline prices topping US$4 a gallon, or nearly US$1 a liter, in many parts of the country, a high price for US drivers.
His announcement followed passage in the Republican--controlled US House of Representatives of three bills — including two this week — that would expand and speed up offshore oil and gas -drilling. Republicans say the bills are aimed at easing gasoline costs, but they also acknowledge that won’t be immediate.
The White House had announced its opposition to all three bills, which are unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled US Senate, saying the measures would undercut safety reviews and open environmentally sensitive areas to new drilling.
However, Obama is adopting some of the bills’ provisions.
Answering the call of Republicans and Democrats from Gulf coast states, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that he would extend all Gulf of Mexico leases that were affected by a temporary moratorium on drilling imposed after last year’s BP PLC oil spill. That would give companies additional time to begin drilling.
The administration had been granting extensions case by case, but senior administration officials said the US Department of the Interior would institute a blanket one-year extension.
New safety requirements put in place since the BP spill also have delayed drilling in Alaska, so Obama said he would extend lease terms there for a year as well. An oil lease typically runs 10 years.
Lease sales in the western and central Gulf of Mexico that were postponed last year will be held by the middle of next year, the same time period required by the House of Representatives.
A sale off the Virginia coast still would not happen until 2017 at the earliest. However, Obama said he would speed up environmental reviews so that seismic studies to determine how much oil and gas lies off the Atlantic Ocean coast can begin.
To further expedite drilling off the Alaskan coast, where such plans by Shell Oil Co have been delayed by an air pollution permit, Obama said he would create an interagency task force to -coordinate the necessary approvals. He also will hold annual lease sales in the vast US National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope. Officials said the most recent sale was last year, but that they had not been held on any set schedule.
Republicans dismayed by the lack of progress in Shell’s drilling have drafted legislation to exempt drilling off Alaska from air pollution laws.
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings of Washington, sponsor of the legislation, said it was “ironic” that Obama “is now taking baby steps in our direction” after the White House and congressional Democrats criticized the bills.
“The president is finally admitting what Republicans have known all along, that increasing the supply of American energy will help lower prices and create jobs,” Hastings said.
Obama also called on Democrats and Republicans to vote to eliminate billions in taxpayer subsidies to oil and gas companies.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last