Senator Lisa Murkowski and others are pressing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to develop a new five-year Outer Continental Shelf lease plan as soon as possible to comply with a court order vacating Interior's Bush-era plan while ensuring Shell and others can explore for oil and gas off the Alaska coast.rnA GOP spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week said congressional staffers aren't sure yet how broadly to interpret the April 17 court decision. But for starters, he said, Interior needs to map out the next steps.rnA three-judge panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the entire 2007-12 OCS lease plan developed by the Minerals Management Service under President Bush administration. The decision questioned whether the agency properly accounted for environmental risks to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in northern Alaska.rnAside from concerns about the impact on offshore Alaska drilling, Murkowski and her staff warned that a case focused almost exclusively on Alaska could create problems for Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases.
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