Keep offshore drilling off coasts
United States needs to step up to role as leader in sustainable energy for the future
There should be no offshore oil drilling along the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. Not ever. Period. The potential for harm far outweighs the benefits, which are questionable at best.
That matter should be settled for good, so everyone concerned can move ahead. Coastal communities should know that while they must prepare for pressures of continued development and changes wrought by climate change, they are free of the threat of drilling and oil rigs. Energy companies should know these waters are and will be off limits, and that they should make other plans.
And the United States should take up its proper role as a leader in the push for cleaner, more sustainable energy that is essential for the future. Drilling off the coasts will only delay the time when we must find other energy sources.
Instead of moving ahead with any certainty, Virginia, North Carolina and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard have been dealing with an offshore drilling policy that changes with the political winds.
Maybe Virginia and North Carolina are safe from oil drilling and exploration for the next 10 years. Maybe they aren’t. Or maybe they are for now, but things will change again.
At a recent rally in Newport News, President Donald Trump announced that he was extending the moratorium on drilling he’d promised for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to Virginia and North Carolina. Virginia’s U.S. senators and seven members of the House of Representatives, all Democrats, had just sent him a letter asking that he do that — as he had for the three states with Republican governors.
The announcement seemed to be good news. Less encouraging was the way that Trump added, almost jokingly: “If you want to have oil rigs out there, just let me know — we’ll take it (the ban) off. I can understand that, too.”
That comment continues this administration’s capricious approach toward a serious issue that should have been settled already.
Many East Coast politicians once supported oil drilling, but when a plan was unveiled in 2015 that would have opened up much of the South Atlantic coast, opposition swelled. The Obama administration, with bipartisan support, banned drilling in much of the Atlantic and Arctic.
In Virginia and North Carolina, as elsewhere, drilling could jeopardize the coastal economy, which is heavily dependent on the U.S. Navy, fisheries, aquaculture, tourism and the shipping industry. An oil spill would be disastrous.
But when Trump became president, he revoked the new drilling ban and rolled out a plan for exploration and drilling along most of the Atlantic coast.
Now, in a race for re-election, Trump has been dangling exemptions to his drilling plan to win votes or help his political allies. First, he gave exemptions to the three Southeastern coastal states with Republican governors. Now he says he’s including Virginia and North Carolina.
Trump’s actions are typical of his approach to environmental issues. His administration has worked hard to throw out or weaken many of the laws and regulations that have helped the United States clean up and protect the environment.
When he runs into significant opposition, especially from those who are otherwise his supporters, he relents a little. Often, he then boasts that he’s “green.”
When he went to Florida early in September to announce the 10-year moratorium on drilling there and in Georgia and South Carolina, he proclaimed himself “a great environmentalist” and said he’d done more for the environment than any president since Teddy Roosevelt.
He omitted the fact that his moratorium is protecting the coasts from drilling he had ordered, after revoking the ban that was in place when he took office.
This issue should be put to rest. Drilling off the Southeast Atlantic coast is a bad idea. It would damage the environment and the economy and only prolong our nation’s costly dependence on fossil fuels. It’s wrong to play political games with something so essential to our future.