NC governor on Trump drilling plan: ‘Not off our coast’

ATLANTIC BEACH, NC: Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, North Carolina’s governor announced his opposition to drilling for natural gas and oil off the Atlantic coast, saying it poses too much of a threat to the state’s beaches and tourism economy.

Up against a Friday deadline for comment from elected officials on the Trump administration’s request for companies to perform seismic testing under Atlantic waters, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper held a news conference at a coastal state park to announce he’ll be registering the state’s opposition.

“There is a threat looming over this coastline that we love and the prosperity it brings, and that’s the threat of offshore drilling,” Cooper said at the Fort Macon State Park in Carteret County, where he said he visited as a child and as a parent.

“As governor, I’m here to speak out and take action against it. I can sum it up in four words: ‘not off our coast.’” State Republican leaders, including former Gov. Pat McCrory, have pressed for exploration both offshore and inland through hydraulic fracturing. GOP legislators have passed laws laying the groundwork for collecting royalties from any oil and gas mined below the ocean surface.

In April, Trump signed an executive order to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, reversing restrictions imposed by President Barack Obama, and the Interior Department is rewriting a five-year drilling plan. A federal agency is now seeking permits for five businesses to use seismic air guns to find oil and gas formations deep under the Atlantic, despite the harm environmentalists say this technology does to marine mammals. Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan also announced his opposition this month.

Cooper, who took office in January, said an oil spill could be catastrophic to commercial fishermen and the tourism industry, which provides more than $3 billion in spending and 30,000 jobs in coastal counties. North Carolina Petroleum Council Executive Director David McGowan said offshore energy could bring thousands of new jobs and more local revenues. The governor disagreed.