It's a pittance. She said the state has not come up with an estimate of how much oil and gas lie beneath Lake Michigan. The royalties go to a trust fund that awards grants for purchasing and protecting environmentally sensitive or special lands. But Michigan has not awarded leases for any new wells since 1997, when the state began reviewing both the leasing program and directional drilling. The leasing program could resume by July or August, although it would probably take close to a year for companies to apply for and receive the lease and drilling permits they need before they can start drilling.
Any well contributes.
That's the bottom line. Jeffery Foran, president of the environmental advocacy group Citizens for a Better Environment, sees a very different bottom line. If we raised fuel efficiency standards for cars, trucks and SUVs by less than a mile per gallon, in one year we would save the amount of oil that is under the Great Lakes. Probably far more than that. He said the push should not be toward oil and gas exploration in the Great Lakes but toward conservation through higher fuel efficiency standards and high-speed rail linking Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.