Something to Keep in Mind for the Offshore Drilling Debate:

The AP reports that oil and gas companies may not be interested in drilling all of the available leases.  Minerals Management Services announced that they only received 423 bids for 319 tracts of land--approximately 1.3 bids per tract of land, and maybe even just a single bid for many tracts if companies are competing over only a handful of them.  Moreover, the AP says that over 3,412 offshore tracts were put up for lease, which means that 90 percent of the tracts were of NO interest to industry.  It's unclear how many of these leases (if any) will produce oil and/or gas, which may account for the low number of bids.  But still, POGO can't help but ask: with so little competition, is there any reason for taxpayers to believe that these are competitive bids that will get taxpayers the money they deserve?

-- Mandy Smithberger