If you've been scrambling to organize your thoughts about offshore drilling while trying to fit in last-minute gift shopping, relax.

The federal Minerals Management Service has extended the public comment period for its proposal to lease waters off Virginia to oil and natural gas companies for drilling, Barb Barrett reports.

The agency announced in November it wants to begin environmental assessments on the region and needs public input.

The agency extended its deadline to Jan. 13, from Dec. 29. The agency said the 15-day extension was reasonable given the holiday period.

The agency’s proposal and a map of the proposed area can be found online here.

Comments can be sent via email to sale220@mms.gov, or by snail mail to the address after the jump.

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How much oil is off North Carolina's coast?

No one knows for sure, but the Minerals Management Service recently estimated based on exploration done in the 1970s and 1980s that between one half and 3.5 billion barrels of oil lie off the coast of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia.

Not all of that oil would be available under the most likely scenarios, since the states or the federal government could limit offshore drilling within sight of the shoreline. Between one-tenth and seven-tenths of a billion barrels of oil is within 50 miles of shore.

How long would that oil last?

According to the Energy Information Administration, U.S. consumers used about 5.5 billion barrels of crude oil and petroleum products in 2007. (See "Refinery and Blender Net Inputs" on this chart. To be exact, subtract "Exports" one column over, though it doesn't make much difference.)

In other words, the oil offshore from North Carolina and its neighboring Atlantic Coast states amounts to between 26 and 231 days' worth of U.S. oil consumption.

Of course, it would mean a huge increase in U.S. drilling.

According to the same chart (see "Field Production"), U.S. production of crude oil in 2007 was 1.8 billion barrels, so the South Atlantic oil amounts to between 79 days and almost two years' worth of current domestic oil production.

A royalty relief provision from 2005 has not cost the federal government anything so far.

A recent TV ad attacked U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for voting for the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which included a provision to allow oil companies to avoid paying royalties for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

As noted previously, the ad's citation of a "$7 billion" cost estimate for that bill was inaccurate, as the editorial it quoted was referring to royalty relief given in the late 1990s.

But today, the U.S. Department of the Interior told Dome that the royalty relief provisions in the 2005 bill have not cost anything so far because unlike the earlier measures they included price thresholds that kicked in when oil prices rise.

The threshold for 2008 will be around $37 a barrel, but oil is currently selling for around $112.

Walter Cruickshank, the deputy director of the Minerals Management Service, said that the 2005 royalty relief will not really affect the federal budget or oil companies.

"As a practical matter, (it will cost) probably nothing," he said.