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 environ- 

 mental monitoring and forecasting systems, including the use of data 

 received from satellites, supplemented locally by surface observa- 

 tions. 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 state- 

 ment of May 1970. By 1985, this accelerated leasing rate could in- 

 crease 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 



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