And now for one of the 3 pillars of Obama’s vision of the energy future for the United States: 37 million acres opened up for offshore drilling! (The other two pillars being nuclear energy and clean coal, of course).

Yes, that’s right- the Department of the Interior issued final terms for the leasing of close to 37 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to energy companies.

I’ll just give you a moment to think about that.

… …

What in the offshore drilling are we doing? Is this all in the name of energy independence? As that is the only possible explanation I can think of for doing what is otherwise totally inexplicable to me. Oh, wait, the government will get a whole lot of money from the energy companies by leasing this… oh, now I get it. How much will the government get from leasing the land? 18.75% of the value of the oil and gas they drill! Now that is a way to raise revenue. And while I can’t argue with the financial and economic need for the government to raise money, I can only hope that a good portion of that money is going to go to clean and renewable energy. How about a 2% of that government leasing revenue goes straight to the reward pool for anyone who is creating a new clean energy option through solar or wind? How about all of it, while I’m at it…

The area is believed to hold up to 1.3 billion barrels of crude oil and 5.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and the sale will include 4.1 million acres off the Alabama-Florida border. This lease sale will be held March 17 will also cut the time energy companies have to develop oil and gas resources on certain tracts.

Liz Birnbaum, director of the department's Minerals Management Service on shorter leasing periods:

[Shorter leasing periods will] "provide a fair return to the public for (offshore) resources and a fair opportunity for lessees to explore, develop and profit from their leases while encouraging diligent development. MMS recognizes that advances in technology have decreased the time necessary for exploration and development in some water depths, while frontier conditions still exist in the deepest waters of the Gulf. The reduction of some initial lease periods with possible extensions is a way to expedite development."

Oil and gas companies are of course against shortening the drilling period, as they would like to have access for as long as they can, regardless of advances in technologies. It will be tough to break the link between gigantic energy companies and our politicians, as most have grown up with and still depend on the money coming from these companies. Even President Obama, with all the hope and change in the social side of things, is pushing coal and offshore oil as key parts of the energy future in the U.S. Which makes me sad, not only for the future of the Earth and of clean energy, but for the future of our politics, as it is now clear that the entire country is in the pocket of the fossil fuel companies.

Photo Credit: PhillipC (via Flickr under CCL)