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The Bush administration has taken steps to open the Californian coast to oil exploration and drilling in as few as three years. The move could potentially tap more than 10 billion barrels of oil, enough to power the U.S. for 17 months.

The proposal has been greeted with horror in environmental circles, wary of the threat of oil spills, air pollution and increased shipping traffic in an area rich with migrating whales, millions of seabirds, sea otters, fish and crab feeding grounds. According to Richard Charter, a lobbyist for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, “You couldn’t design a better formula to create adverse impacts on California’s coastal-dependent economy.”

The federal government is to take advantage of the expiry of a 27 year-old ban on oil drilling that protected both of the nation’s coasts, including the stretch from California to the Pacific Northwest. President-Elect Obama has remained tight-lipped over whether he would overturn the lifting of the oil-drilling moratorium.

If it goes ahead, the plan would open areas from Bodego Bay to the Oregon border and from Morrow Bay to the U.S.-Mexico border for oil exploration, drilling and extraction. Exploration could start as early as 2010, with oil rigs going up by 2012.

The incoming Obama administration will have the final say over whether the proposals will go ahead. Obama has said that he supports the notion of energy independence and growth in the harnessing of domestic renewable energy sources as part of the energy mix. However, he has remained ambiguous over the extent to which domestic oil exploration will also form part of his energy plan, and it is likely that moves in this area will be keenly scrutinized in period following his inauguration.

Image Credit – Tuftronic10000 via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license