ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Presi dent Obama on Tuesday signed an executive order creating an interagency working group to coordinate energy development in Alaska, a move hailed by lawmakers who want to see drilling in Arctic outer continental shelf waters.
State coffers receive upward of 90 percent of their revenue from the petroleum industry.
Interior Department Deputy Secretary David Hayes will chair the group. Hayes said on the White House blog that the group will include senior officials from the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the federal coordinator for an Alaska natural gas pipeline.
Officials in Alaska have been critical of delays in drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. The trans-Alaska pipeline now operates at less than one-third capacity, and pressure is mounting to find new petroleum sources, such as 26.6 billion barrels of oil estimated to be beneath Alaska’s outer continental shelf.
