The Administration held only one offshore lease sale in 2011.

Conducted on December 14th, the Administration narrowly avoided making 2011 the first year since 1953 without an offshore lease sale.

The first federal lease sale offshore Florida was in 1959.

But officials writing the regulations left those details out, preferring to set the precise rules at each new lease sale.

That makes the lease sale more than an issue of esthetics or national energy requirements.

The first federal lease sale offshore Alaska was held in 1976.

The possible offshore lease sale became an issue in the 2009 race for governor of Virginia.

That plan would cut off from the proposed lease sale a stovepipe section that lies due south of Alabama.

The Clinton administration supported the lease sale, which have been in the works since 1997.

Last March, at a similar lease sale, oil companies bid a total of $397.5 million, he said.