operational. any drilling leases are approved. the pipeline was plagued by lawsuits from land owners and environmentalists. the company intends to start construction next year. it says it hasn t made a final decision to build it. as for off score drilling njanuary, the interior secretary announced a plan to open all u.s. waters to off-shore oil drilling in 5 years. that was met with widespread bipartisan opposition on the atlantic and pacific coasts. 5 days later after meeting with the governor of florida. the secretary pulled it off the table. saying florida is unique and they rely on tourism. that prompted governor s to say we are unique too.
were pulling out. and now tonight the white house has just pulled the plug on the whole thing for everyone because tonight the obama administration has announced that it will not renew any current drilling leases in arctic waters and they will not sell any more of them either. wow. this was the response from greenpeace to this announcement tonight. and i quote directly, greenpeace collectively waves its kayak paddles in thanks to the president for ensuring this arctic protection. up this is big news today. we knew shell was pulling out. but they had been given permission. was somebody else going to follow them and try to pull off what shell wasn t able to do? no. we now know there will be no more drilling in the arctic ocean. at least in the arctic during the obama presidency. the arctic will not be drilled under this president. this one s done. shell failed. and the activists trying to keep the arctic undrilled, those activists won. they won. clear as day.
equipment from the chukchi sea. the well will be sealed and abandoned in accordance with u.s. regulations. shell got permission to go drill the arctic from the obama administration but shell couldn t pull it off. they didn t get what they needed out there. and that was a couple of weeks ago that shell announced they were pulling out. and now tonight the white house has just pulled the plug on the whole thing for everyone because tonight the obama administration has announced that it will not renew any current drilling leases in arctic waters and they will not sell any more of them either. wow. this was the response from greenpeace to this announcement tonight. and i quote directly, greenpeace collectively waves its kayak paddles in thanks to the president for ensuring this arctic protection. this is big news today. we knew shell was pulling out. but they had been given permission. was somebody else going it follow them and try to pull off what shell wasn t able to do? no. we now know
say, yes. boy, across-the-board people have been making the case to him. they changed the route. they have done everything that they that he has asked them to do in order to say yes to this project. shannon: i don t know if you had a chance to look at a lot of what he said this week in chicago but he talked about creating this $2 billion sort of trust fund to use royalties that the government gets from drilling leases and those kinds of things to use the money towards alternate energy sources. what role do you think that that plays in lessening our dependences on foreign oil? we long said we need and all of the above energy plan but you needs to take into consideration economic reality. so we need we need to do more exploration here in this country. we know that we have oil reserves. we know that we have coal reserves. we need to say, yes. what is going on with natural gas is phenomenal and the
congress, if you would counsel republicans running for president, not to use gas prices as a political club against the president when it s a failure of leadership, is it not on the part of the republicans and democrats going back decades here, to fail to achieve energy independence, and be surgeon to the whims of instability in the middle east that makes the prices go up and down. let s call it how it is. this president and his administration are hostile to fossil fuel. the reality is we will be a nation dependant on the foss annual fuel for the foreseeable future. we can look for opportunities for alternative sources, but at this point we got to and should rely on all the energy sources here at home. he expanded drilling leases the reality is, and he will claim the production of energy