Interior Secretary Ken Salazar repeats commitment to use BP money for coastal restoration

Traveling by airboat through the Delta National Wildlife Refuge on Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar repeated the Obama administration's commitment to using large chunks of money paid by BP to rebuild Louisiana wetlands. Salazar asked Garret Graves, chairman of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, whether it might make sense to use part of the BP money paid in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for a half-dozen freshwater and sediment diversions that the state has included in its master plan for coastal protection and restoration.

Salazar said the administration is supporting the Restore Act, which would dedicate 80 percent of any fines levied against BP and other responsible parties to restoration projects in Gulf states. But he said the Justice Department also is attempting to ensure that any settlement of legal claims now pending in federal court in New Orleans would include similar requirements to spend money on restoration projects.

Salazar's impromptu five-hour tour of Louisiana's coastal erosion problems followed his kicking off the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's successful sale of leases in the central Gulf of Mexico.

During the flight, he mused on the complaints raised over the past two years by Republicans, including Gov. Bobby Jindal, about the speed at which oil and gas production has returned to the Gulf.

"I think that the attacks of the Republican Party on what was done in the Gulf are simply wrong," Salazar said. "They don't stand up to the truth of the light of day.

"The number of permits that have now been issued, and the rigs that are operating out here in the Gulf of Mexico, the bids we saw this morning in the lease sale in the central Gulf, all are measurements that should tell the world that the Gulf is back in business and doing well," he said.

Salazar said the administration's efforts to resume drilling in the Gulf in a responsible manner match its efforts to ramp up regulation of drilling for natural gas and oil in deep shale deposits, using a method called hydrofracturing or "fracking."

He said federal officials are on track to require release of information about the chemicals used to fracture the hard shale deposits, while promoting the method to produce enough natural gas to meet the nation's needs for the next 100 years. The cheaper prices for natural gas resulting from the new exploration method have been seen as an opportunity by the administration to push big business to switch their commercial fleets to natural gas, he said, which will result in the production of less greenhouse gases.

Salazar passed over the rapidly eroding Chandeleur Islands and Breton Island, which are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge.

Unusual high tides that prompted coastal flood warnings on Wednesday made the remaining barrier islands look even smaller from the air.

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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar repeats commitment to use BP money for coastal restoration