OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Interior under Senate panel microscope

News
June 5, 2013
By Zack Colman
 
ON TAP THURSDAY: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell makes her first appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee since being confirmed in her new role.
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SPEAKING OF OFFSHORE DRILLING ...
 
A subpanel of the House Natural Resources Committee will discuss legislation to expand offshore drilling to zones in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
 
Committee Chairman Doc Hastings’s (R-Wash.) bill is largely similar to the one he sponsored last year, which passed the House.
 
It would require President Obama to submit a new five-year offshore drilling plan that includes areas off the coasts of California, South Carolina and Virginia. The current White House plan, which runs through 2017, keeps the coasts off limits to drillers.
 
The bill stands a good chance of passing the GOP-controlled House, which has said Obama’s drilling plan is too restrictive. But it likely won’t get called in the Senate.
 
Witnesses include John Felmy, chief economist with the American Petroleum Institute, and Christopher Guith, vice president for policy with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy.
 
Read more at The Hill.