British Columbia is excited about its possible new offshore gas-exploration program-and its bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Canadian province's capital, Vancouver, is competing with two other cities-Salzburg, Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea-for the games. If it wins, "we hope to light the torch at those Olympics with gas from our offshore energy industry," says Rick Thorpe, British Columbia's minister of competition, science and enterprise. The province is readying to offer offshore drilling permits. The only drilling done off Canada's west coast was one well in 1949 and a few wells in the 1960s by Shell Canada, resulting in noncommercial levels of oil and some gas shows, according to a government report. A moratorium on drilling has been in effect ever since. But, in 2001, British Columbia appointed a scientific panel to examine whether offshore oil and gas development could be conducted without damaging the environment. The panel concluded last year that industry practices can be sufficiently environmentally responsible, and there is no need to continue the moratorium. "Who do you know who wants to destroy the environment? I don't know anyone in British Columbia who does," Thorpe told participants in a recent Houston World Affairs Council program on the Canadian energy business. To make itself more business-friendly, the province's new political administration has cut taxes 27 times in its first 23 months. It has eliminated corporate capital taxes and sales taxes on oil, gas and energy machinery. "We want you to invest in British Columbia," Thorpe told E&P executives. Six of the top investors in British Columbia are U.S. companies, and four of these are from Texas, he added. "British Columbia knows its success is dependent on your success...Come to British Columbia and help us develop our oil and gas resources." -Nissa Darbonne