The rescinding of Bush administration policy just keeps on coming. There was Guantanamo, there were mercury restrictions, and now there’s a big one - offshore drilling.

The Obama administration has set aside a draft of a plan for drilling off our coasts, extended the public comment period by six months, and announced that the goal will be to find renewable energy offshore, instead of oil and gas. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the changes.

Salazar also ordered Interior Department experts to compile a report on the Outer Continental Shelf’s energy potential — not just oil and gas, but also renewables like wind and wave energy. In the biggest area that the Bush administration’s draft OCS plan proposes for oil and gas drilling — the Atlantic seaboard, from Maine to Florida — our data on available resources is very thin, and what little we have is twenty to thirty years old,’ he said. ‘We shouldn’t make decisions to sell off taxpayer resources based on old information.’ [msnbc.com]

This does not mean offshore drilling will not happen, however. Instead, President Obama and Secretary Salazar would like to see any offshore plans be part of a comprehensive energy policy, not an “independent action by the Interior Department.” So only time will tell what will ultimately happen offshore, but I think this sums it up quite well:

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., praised the move as an end to ‘drill first and ask questions later’.

Keep up with what happens on this front and takepart to learn about President Obama’s energy policy.