waves rarely exceeding two feet in height, weak currents, mild temperatures, and no ice cover. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Defense are currently planning augmentation of existing environmental monitoring and forecasting systems, including the use of data received from satellites, supplemented locally by surface observations. The ultimate objective of these efforts, whose purpose is to provide both protection of the environment and aids to navigation, is the establishment of reliable forecasts that will routinely provide information on winds, waves and swell, current velocities, ocean thermal structure, air temperature, fog, precipitation, upwelling, movement of major pressure centers, and ice conditions. The forecasts will be supplemented by warning services to ports and ships as appropriate. These augmented public services will also provide valuable assistance to maritime commerce generally, to the fishing industry, and to the development of possible petroleum reserves in the Gulf of Alaska.

Offshore Petroleum

Geophysical information indicates the existence of favorable geological structures for future discovery of petroleum at many places beneath the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Federal leasing of OCS tracts, which permits exploratory drilling and subsequent production from the favorable structures, has been limited chiefly to the Gulf of Mexico and selected areas off the southern California coast. Altogether the leased areas, which amount to almost 8 million acres, constitute but a small fraction of the total area of the shelf. Of the leases, about one-third are sites of present production, one-third are sites of continuing exploration or development, and one-third have been terminated following failure to find commercially producible reserves. This relatively low level of development is not adequate to meet national needs for domestic production.

Accordingly, the President has directed the Secretary of the Interior to take steps which would triple the annual acreage leased on the OCS by 1979, beginning with expanded sales in 1974 in the Gulf of Mexico and including areas beyond 200 meters in depth under conditions consistent with the President's Ocean Policy statement of May 1970. By 1985, this accelerated leasing rate could increase annual production of hydrocarbons by an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Legitimate concerns over the threat of environmental damage will continue to control OCS oil development activities. However, new and recently improved technology, new regulations and standards, and new surveillance capabilities enable substantial reduction and control of environmental dangers. The nation should now take advantage of this progress. Plans for OCS leasing beyond the Channel Islands of California will proceed if reviews now under way show that the environmental risks are acceptable. The Council on

Environmental Quality, working with the Environmental Protection Agency and in consultation with the National Academy of Sciences and appropriate Federal agencies, is initiating a study of the environmental impact of oil and gas production on the Atlantic OCS and in the Gulf of Alaska.

The President has asked the Secretary of the Interior to develop a long-term leasing program for all energy resources on public lands, based on a thorough analysis of the nation's energy, environmental, and economic objectives. An outline follows of steps being taken by Interior and other Federal agencies as a part of the Federal Ocean Program applicable to offshore oil and gas development, in cooperation or consultation with State and local governments, industry, and other organizations.

Federal lease tracts in the Gulf of Mexico and off southern California lie adjacent to regions of land and nearshore production. Here the knowledge and experience gained through exploration and development of the onshore and nearshore fields, and the availability of pipeline systems leading to nearby refineries, permit significant production from newly discovered OCS fields within two or three years from the time of leasing. Elsewhere on the shelves, extensive exploratory drilling may be required to confirm the presence of commercially producible reserves. If these efforts are successful, production, pipeline, and other facilities must be constructed. For these regions, industry estimates a time lapse of up to five years from the time of leasing and first discoveries to the attainment of significant production. For remote parts of the continental shelf off northern and western Alaska, where environmental conditions are critical factors, and leasing rules must await completion of CEQ and other studies, the estimated times are somewhat longer. However, the industry's world-wide experience with hostile marine environments, from North Sea storms to Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, will provide much of the engineering design and operating know-how for the Alaskan coastal environment. To these industry estimates, one must add the time required by the government, including the courts, to collect and evaluate independently data that will make promising areas available for leasing to industry and provide sufficient knowledge to assure safety of operations and protection of the environment.

In mid-September and early December, 1972, the Department of the Interior implemented the first two sales of an accelerated lease schedule that was prepared in response to President Nixon's June 1971 Energy Message to Congress. The two sales realized more than $2.2 billion in bonus bid revenues to the Federal Government, reflecting the petroleum industry's great need for new domestic production. Successful exploratory wells were announced within three or four months of each sale.

The 1972 lease sales and those planned for 1973 are limited to offerings on the Gulf of Mexico shelf, where the promise of early production to meet critical needs is greatest. In anticipation of

An offshore oil-drillling platform is a lonely sentinel in Alaska's Cook Inlet.

(Photo-Courtesy of (API)

maintaining a higher frequency of sales in this region, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with the cooperation of industry, are expediting the following programs: identification and assessment of offshore petroleum resource potentials for use in selecting promising oil and gas areas for early leasing, including areas beyond the 200-meter isobath; collection and evaluation of data concerning seafloor and sub-seafloor hazards and associated environmental conditions in the promising areas; planning and conducting lease sales and allocations of pipeline rights-of-way, including preparation and publication of environmental impact statements; and inspection of industry plans and activities to assure maintenance of safe and efficient operations following the lease sales.

Because the number of remaining areas favorable for discovery of oil beneath the Gulf are limited, the USGS is accelerating regional studies of other parts of the U.S. continental shelves to identify and outline promising areas for future petroleum exploration. During FY'72 and FY'73, emphasis has been placed on assembling and synthesizing existing information for the northern half of the shelf along the Atlantic coast and for the shelf bordering the south coast of Alaska. The promising areas identified in these studies serve as focal points for subsequent detailed resource assessments and environmental evaluations.

To identify areas that have promising oil and gas potentials, USGS utilizes proprietary data obtained from industry. Although generally adequate for this purpose, the industry data must be supplemented by other types of information, often gathered for other purposes, to make decisions relating to resource development and to assure safety and protection of the environment during subsequent exploration, development, and exploitation of resources.

Many agencies participate in the collection and analysis of data for areas that appear to have promise and may be considered for future lease sales. The plans of NOAA's National Ocean Survey for hydrographic surveys include the northern half of the Atlantic continental shelf and the shelf off southern Alaska. These provide basic information on the configuration of the sea floor required for studies of both resource and environmental data. The USGS has accelerated systematic investigations of bottom and subbottom conditions and resources at Georges Bank, an area of high petroleum potential off New England. It expects to initiate similar investigations of a second promising area on the Atlantic OCS off Delaware during 1973. In these same areas, other organizations are gathering information on oceanographic and weather conditions, on fisheries resources, on recreational and transportation uses, and on a variety of other subjects. BLM has begun assembling the information supplied by various agencies and by State and private organizations in order to select specific areas for future leasing and to prepare environmental impact statements for each.

Along the Pacific and Alaskan coasts, the USGS, with the