The Obama administration will speed up the Department of Interior's work on using the ocean's winds, waves and tidal currents to produce energy.
But it isn't reinstating the ban on offshore drilling that former President Bush lifted last year.
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar announced this afternoon that the agency will finish developing federal rules on offshore renewable energy within the next month or so. The new rules would outline what the administration expects of states and companies in developing renewable energy in offshore federal waters.
Salazar also extended by 180 days the public comment period on a five-year offshore drilling plan dropped by Bush in the waning days of his presidency. That period was to end March 23; it was extended to Sept. 23. Salazar said the plan will include renewable energy programs as well as oil and natural gas drilling.
North Carolina's coastline has some of the nation's strongest offshore opportunities for wind energy, according to a map Salazar showed at a news conference this afternoon in Washington. But the state's coast also has captured the interest of the nation's oil and gas companies.
And a proposed lease sale of acreage off the Virginia coastline — just north of the Outer Banks — could go on as planned in 2011, Salazar said.
"That plan is already in place," he said. "It's already opened up. Will this effort have an impact on that? I don't know."
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