OneNewsNow.  “The Obama administration may have lifted the moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but it may not do enough to retain jobs and keep prices down. Several nations are stepping up efforts to become self-sufficient when it comes to oil and gasoline, including Cuba. Dan Kish, an energy policy expert with the Institute for Energy Research (IER), explains what is now at stake. "It’s not just Cuba — it’s Brazil, it’s the United Kingdom, it’s Norway, it’s Venezuela, it’s Africa," he exclaims. "Every place in the world except for the United States seems to be looking for more and more oil — and they are reaching out and asking people to come in and invest money and create jobs in their economy because they realize how strong it is. "And yet the United States sits on huge supplies of oil, and our government seems to be pushing investment to those foreign shores. " The IER senior vice president for policy says "it’s almost like outsourcing all of our energy to other places, even though we have it at home. " "[This approach] puts us at national security peril, transfers wealth to the rest of the world — and meanwhile [it] drives up costs for Americans," states Kish.”

The Hill.  “The Center for Biological Diversity filed litigation against the Interior Department Friday that seeks re-instatement of the federal deepwater drilling ban, alleging Interior lifted the moratorium this month without enough ecological study. The green group’s lawsuit claims that damage from the BP oil spill laid bare the need for a fuller analysis. “We can no longer afford to have our government simply taking the oil industry at its word when it comes to ensuring the safety of people and the environment. Offshore drilling is a dangerous business, and [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar’s Interior Department needs to take that threat seriously,” said Miyoko Sakashita, the Center’s oceans director, in a statement. The lawsuit adds to attacks on Interior’s oil-and-gas drilling policy from the left and the right. Industry groups say Interior is acting too slowly to grant permits. But the Center’s lawsuit contends Interior violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to craft a full-blown Environmental Impact Statement.”