Hearing on offshore drilling set for San Francisco

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will attend a public meeting next month in San Francisco as part of his effort to forge a new policy for offshore oil and gas development, including the California coast.

Citizens, public officials, advocacy groups and energy producers are invited to attend the meeting and offer comments at the University of California at San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center on April 16.

Similar meetings will be held in Atlantic City, N.J., New Orleans, La., and Anchorage, Alaska in the first two weeks of April.

The meetings are intended to offer “an open, honest conversation with the American people to solicit the best information possible about an offshore energy plan," Salazar said in a statement Wednesday.

North Coast oil drilling foes expressed dismay when a 26-year ban on drilling expired on Oct. 1, while advocates of expanded drilling hailed it as “American Energy Freedom Day.”

Last month, Salazar ordered a review of offshore oil and gas development, scrapping a sweeping blueprint for expanded offshore drilling proposed in the Bush administration’s final days.

The secretary extended the public comment period on the Bush plan by 180 days and called for a detailed report from Interior agencies on conventional and renewable offshore energy resources. He also ordered four regional conferences to review the findings.

Interior oversees more than 1.7 billion acres on the Outer Continental Shelf, an area roughly the size of the United States.

Critics say the estimated 2.3 billion barrels of oil along the section of California coast that includes the North Coast is too small to justify development that they say threatens tourism and fisheries.

The U.S. consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day, one-fourth of the world’s consumption, and when gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon last year the “drill now” drumbeat intensified.

A state official told a House committee last month that California remains opposed to expansion of offshore oil and gas development.