Interior officials won't offer timeline for issuing offshore drilling permits

Top Interior Department officials refused to get specific Friday about when permits for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will be issued. 

"We are carefully and rigorously reviewing drilling plans. I am quite confident we will again get to the point where we approve deepwater permits,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said Friday, according to Reuters.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other top officials at the department went to Houston Friday to inspect technology being developed by major oil companies that would contain well blowouts. As part of a series of new safety regulations, the department has said that companies must prove they can contain a blowout before being granted permits.

Salazar added that the political unrest in Libya, which has caused oil prices to spike, will not affect the department’s consideration of permits, Reuters reported.