Interior extends 1,400 leases affected by post-spill drilling moratorium

The Interior Department is extending nearly 1,400 Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas leases that were affected by the moratorium on deepwater drilling put in place after last year’s oil spill there.

Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSSE) completed Monday its review of 1,413 requests for lease extensions. The bureau approved 1,381 — roughly 98 percent — of the requests.

Those requests that were rejected did not meet requirements outlined by BSSE in a June notice to lessees.

Amid criticism from Republicans and drill-state Democrats, President Obama announced in May that Interior would extend leases affected by the moratorium by up to a year.

Obama temporarily halted deepwater oil-and-gas drilling in the Gulf in May of 2010, shortly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that killed 11 workers and ultimately dumped 4.9 million barrels of oil into the region. The administration lifted the moratorium in October of 2010 after the Interior Department put forward a series of beefed-up safety and environmental standards.

Republicans have been pummeling Obama for months over offshore drilling, arguing that the administration did not move quickly enough to permit new projects.