The North Carolina Coastal Federation announced this week that Dr. Lela Schlenker has the nonprofit organization as its new coastal advocate for northeastern part of the state.

Schlenker comes to the Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, most recently from Avangrid Renewables, where she led the fisheries team across the company’s U.S. offshore wind projects and focused on communicating with fishing communities, identifying research needs, and coordinating marine policy.

Schlenker is a fisheries ecologist with a research career spanning topics such as the effect of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on mahi-mahi, how climate and weather affect North Carolina shrimp populations, and the impact of catch-and-release fishing practices on white marlin. Throughout her career, she has worked closely with fishing communities along the U.S. coastline, building strong and collaborative partnerships. 

“We’re excited to have Lela join our team. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on coastal issues,” explained Coastal Management Program Director Kerri Allen. “Lela is joining us at a time when there are several major issues facing the Outer Banks region, including threatened oceanfront structures, ongoing water quality concerns, increased pressure to lift hardened shoreline restrictions, and the growing need for long-term coastal resilience planning. Her scientific background, policy experience, and collaborative approach will be a tremendous asset for both the Federation and the coastal communities we serve.” 

Schlenker has an undergraduate degree from Smith College, a master’s from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and a doctorate in marine biology and ecology from the University of Miami.

Schlenker says that her career path was inspired by both a strong conservation ethic and an undergraduate research project in which she sampled fish aboard a commercial trawling vessel. 

“I am really looking forward to connecting with the community as well as working with managers, scientists, and policy makers to continue the great work the Coastal Federation has done and find new ways to protect beautiful coastal North Carolina,” said Schlenker. 

Schlenker started with the Coastal Federation on May 5 and will be based out of the office in Wanchese.

She has been delighted to call the Outer Banks home since 2020. In her spare time, she enjoys finding ways to be on, in, or near the water and growing as much butternut squash as possible in her garden.  

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

The news that the entire Atlantic Coast, including North Carolina waters, has been excluded from the latest offshore drilling Draft Proposed Program is a welcome moment of relief for coastal communities. This exclusion is a direct result of decades of tireless, bipartisan opposition from citizens, businesses, and elected officials who have sent a message to Washington, D.C.: Our coast is not a chip at the poker table.

But let’s be crystal clear: This is a temporary reprieve, not a permanent victory. Without permanent federal protection, the oil industry will be back in five years, threatening to gamble with our livelihood all over again.

The High-Stakes Bet: Tourism vs. Oil

Our state’s economy is not hypothetical; it’s a proven powerhouse built on clean sand and clear water. In 2024, North Carolina welcomed over 40 million visitors who poured a record-breaking $36.7 billion into our economy. According to Visit NC, a stunning 90% of coastal region overnight visitors came for leisure.

Our identity is our asset: towns like Kure Beach thrive because of our clear coastline and the East Coast’s oldest fishing pier — not the promise of an oil rig. Our economy is built on soft sand. It’s our livelihood. Why would we risk a proven, multi-billion-dollar industry for the volatile, dirty promise of oil?

The danger of offshore drilling is not an abstract fear—it’s a guaranteed threat to our future. To argue that a disaster like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion could not happen here is to ignore reality: the U.S. saw nearly 6,000 spills between 2010-2020. Our waters are ruled by powerful, north-flowing Gulf Stream and lie directly in the path of severe hurricanes and tropical storms. A spill would not be contained; it would rapidly devastate beaches, estuaries, and wetlands along the entire North Carolina coastline.

Even without a spill, industrial infrastructure and ugly rigs drive away tourists. Studies of the Gulf Coast have shown that counties with drilling infrastructure suffer a significant reduction in tourism revenue compared to non-drilling coastal areas. The promise of oil riches is a hollow one when the immediate cost is the destruction of our established, high-value tourism market.

United Opposition

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a political debate; it’s an enduring, bipartisan call for common economic sense. Earlier this year, both North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, issued a joint letter opposing the expansion of offshore oil and gas leasing, proving this threat unites governors across state and party lines.

This mandate flows directly from the coast itself. Kure Beach became ground zero of the opposition movement in 2014, and we have passed two resolutions opposing offshore drilling, the most recent of which passed in June 2025. We have since been joined by a chorus of over 40 North Carolina governments, all of whom have passed similar resolutions over the years.

Crucially, the business leaders who power our coastal economy — like NC Catch, the Outer Banks Association of REALTORS, and the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce — all understand a simple truth: clean beaches are their primary asset, and drilling is the greatest threat to their bottom line.

The Path Forward: Codify Protection

The people of the North Carolina coast have bought us time. We cannot afford to be complacent. The exclusion from this proposed program is merely a pause button, not a definitive “game over” for the oil industry.

I urge every reader: Contact your federal representatives. Demand that they move beyond the Draft Proposed Program and actively work to pass the COAST Anti-Drilling Act (S.1486, H.R.2881), that permanently withdraws the Atlantic from all future offshore oil and gas leasing.

Do not let Washington, D.C., gamble away North Carolina’s future again in the next five-year cycle.

We won the battle, but the war for our beaches rages on.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

The Department of the Interior released Thursday a draft program that proposes over the next five years almost three dozen offshore lease sales, none of which is in the Atlantic, but instead are around Alaska and in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.

The secretary of the Interior directed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, to draft the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program to replace the 2024–2029 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program put in place during the Biden administration, according to a press release.

A 60-day public comment period opens when the draft program is published in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen Monday.

The draft program proposes up to 34 potential offshore lease sales across 21 of 27 existing outer continental shelf planning areas, with 21 areas off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Gulf of Mexico, and six along the Pacific Coast, totaling around 1.27 billion acres.

The sites selected in the proposed program are not restricted by presidential memorandum, unlike much of the Atlantic Coast. The North Carolina section of the Atlantic Coast is unavailable for oil and gas leasing until 2032 per a presidential memorandum.

The draft is the first of three proposals that will be developed before final approval of the 2026-2031 program, and is a directive in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that requires the secretary of the Interior to prepare a national program that identifies the size, timing, and location of potential lease sales.

The two Carolina governors are urging the Trump administration to maintain the moratorium on offshore drilling the president set during his first term, citing possible disruptions to the coastal economy from a disaster without the existing protection.

Trump issued in September 2020 memoranda preventing leases for oil and gas drilling off the coast of North Carolina and South Carolina until June 30, 2032.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced plans in April to begin the process of developing a new schedule for offshore oil and gas lease sales for the outer continental shelf. Called the “11th National Outer Continental Shelf Program,” the public comment period opened April 29. The 45-day comment period closes Monday, June 16.

In the letter to BOEM dated June 16, Gov. Josh Stein and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster urge removing North Carolina and South Carolina’s outer continental shelf from consideration for the program. 

“Because of the significant risks associated with offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production off the Carolina coasts, every North Carolina and South Carolina coastal municipality has passed a resolution opposing offshore drilling and seismic testing,” the governors wrote. “This position has been reaffirmed by other municipalities and counties, as well as state legislators and members of our Congressional delegations from both parties. We ask you to respect the wishes of our states and our coastal communities and reaffirm President Trump’s decision to protect our coastlines and the industries they support.” 

North Carolina and South Carolina have a combined 513 miles of ocean beaches and 6,251 miles of coastline that are home to more than 2.7 million people and include numerous national wildlife refuges. The coastal economy for the two states in 2021 contributed $9.6 billion to the gross domestic product, supported more than 125,000 jobs, and provided $3.8 billion in wages, led by tourism and recreation, shipbuilding, fishing, and marine transportation industries.

“These industries would be highly vulnerable to disruption from offshore drilling,” according to the governors’ offices.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. 

It’s a story Carolinians already know: The Trump administration is once again pushing to expand offshore drilling along America’s coasts. It claims to have a mandate, insisting that “America spoke” in last November’s election and that those results endorse the administration’s energy agenda and “national energy emergency” claims.

When America last had a real chance to weigh in on offshore drilling during the first Trump term, it spoke loudly and clearly in opposition. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Carolinas, where communities, local leaders and even Republican lawmakers stood up and firmly said, “No.”

In 2018, the first Trump administration proposed opening up vast stretches of the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling, including waters off North and South Carolina. That plan ran headfirst into a wall of resistance built by residents from coastal towns and inland cities who came together to protect their way of life. Environmental groups, fishermen, small business owners and tourism industry leaders formed unlikely alliances to stop the drilling. More than a hundred coastal communities passed formal resolutions against Atlantic oil drilling. Those unlikely alliances bloomed into rallies, marches and protests for months on end. Their message was simple: Environmentally and economically, the risks were too high.

That opposition was echoed by elected officials, regardless of their side of the aisle. Republican governors and lawmakers broke ranks with the administration to defend their states’ coastlines. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster both called for their states to be excluded from the drilling plan. Coastal communities passed resolutions opposing drilling off their shores. It was a rare display of bipartisan unity, driven by the urgent need to protect local economies, natural heritage and public safety.

The high stakes haven’t changed. The Atlantic Ocean is home to fragile marine ecosystems including species like endangered North Atlantic right whales, sea turtles and countless fish species. Those species and ecosystems are under constant pressure from overfishing, climate change, as well as plastic, chemical and noise pollution. Habitat destruction from coastal development, bottom trawling and dredging further disrupts vital ecosystems. The oil industry could very well be the tipping point for our Atlantic species.

The damage doesn’t stop at the drill site. Seismic testing — the method used to locate oil beneath the ocean floor — blasts powerful sound waves through the water, disorienting and sometimes killing marine animals. Infrastructure to support offshore drilling brings onshore pollution, industrialization of coastal areas, and heightened risk of oil spills. And the closer the drilling moves to shore, the greater the danger to beaches, estuaries, as well as the tourism and fishing industries that rely on clean water and healthy ecosystems. Additionally, due to the proximity of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, spilled oil could rapidly travel thousands of miles, creating widespread ecological damage that would be incredibly difficult to mitigate. That’s thousands of miles of chances for oil to get on and inside the bodies of wildlife, leading to everything from hypothermia to ulcers and a gruesome death.

Now, the first public comment period is open in the 11^th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, which the Department of the Interior will use to create a process for selling leases for drilling off our coasts.

The people of North and South Carolina stood up to offshore drilling once before, and we must do it again: Submit comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and demand that our coast be kept free from new drilling. Offshore drilling has had no place on the Atlantic Coast before, and it has no place here now. America didn’t ask for oil rigs off its beaches — and the Carolinas are once again ready to lead the fight to keep them out.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Guest commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. 

As one of his final acts in office, former President Joe Biden announced a permanent ban on offshore drilling in United States waters. The action protects 625 million acres of ocean from new offshore oil and gas leasing — stretching from Alaska’s Bering Sea and the Pacific Coast to the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Coast.  

Offshore drilling is costly, dirty, and poses a serious risk to coastal communities and states that rely on tourism and commercial fishing industries.  

President Donald Trump acted quickly to revoke these protections in one of the dozens of executive orders he issued on his first day in office. His actions are in keeping with his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill,” catering to the oil and gas companies eager to tap into fossil fuel reserves on public lands despite the harm to people and the environment. But many Americans oppose offshore drilling — and the unacceptable risks it poses to our coasts, communities, and climate — and President Trump’s executive order will face pushback from environmental advocates and local leaders.

North Carolina’s coastal communities are keenly aware of the risk that comes with selling off public waters to private industries. In 2015, over 60 coastal cities and towns in North Carolina passed resolutions opposing offshore drilling to the Obama administration’s proposal to open the south Atlantic to oil and gas development. Local leaders understood then – as they do today – the real cost of having big oil companies dropping anchor along their shores. Commercial fisheries and shipping ports keep the saltwater economy moving along the Outer Banks. The state’s tourism industry is crucial to local economies, with travelers spending $35 billion every year.  

In short, coastal communities aren’t willing to pay the price for selling our oceans to the highest bidder.  

This also isn’t the first time that President Trump has attempted to undo measures protecting our ocean from oil and gas development. In his first term, he tried to undo similar protections put in place by the Obama administration. But a federal judge ruled that Trump’s 2017 executive order violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and reinstated the Obama-era protections.

While President Trump has been quick to sign off a flurry of executive orders, his actions still must follow the laws enacted by Congress.   

The Trump administration’s actions make it clear that they are out of touch with community interests, concerns about climate change and the need to protect our natural resources.

We cannot afford to sell off our oceans at the expense of our people and our planet.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns.

President Joe Biden has permanently closed off much of the nation’s coasts from prospective offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.

The move, announced Monday as Biden wraps up his presidency, includes more than 330 million acres of the Atlantic outer continental shelf, from Canada to the southern tip of Florida, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, as well as the West Coast, and the remainder of Alaska’s northern Bering Sea.

Everyone from coastal advocates to typically opposite-of-the-aisle politicians representing North Carolina coastal communities, which have overwhelmingly opposed offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling, lauded the president’s action.

Wilmington City Councilman and Republican Charlie Rivenbark introduced a resolution opposing seismic airgun testing and offshore drilling off the North Carolina coast to fellow board members nearly 10 years ago.

The board unanimously adopted the resolution, aligning the Port City with dozens of other North Carolina municipalities and counties opposed to then-President Barack Obama’s administration’s plan to open waters off the Southeast coast to oil exploration.

“I would still be opposed to offshore drilling anywhere, particularly along the North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia coasts, and I’m glad President Biden’s doing this on his way out,” Rivenbark said Monday morning. “This to me is almost a nonpartisan issue. I grew up on the coast. I know the other side has got terrific arguments and reasons why, but I just can’t take a chance at an oil spill.”

That sentiment has resonated throughout not only coastal North Carolina, but also across the state over the course of the last several years.

Concerns about the potential for oil spills were specifically cited in the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s April 2019 resolution that opposes offshore drilling. 

The resolution, which was adopted unanimously, pointed to impacts from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and several scientific studies that raise concerns about seismic testing on marine mammals and fisheries.

“Seismic surveys and offshore drilling are just not compatible with our coast,” North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis said in an email response to Coastal Review Monday. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

“Keeping our coast healthy, thriving and free of oil spills is crucial for the survival and prosperity of our communities, and is at the heart of our work at the Federation,” Davis said. “For decades now, North Carolina’s opposition to offshore oil and gas has been largely bipartisan. Even under ideal conditions, drilling operations release a number of dangerous pollutants into the ocean, not to mention the potential for larger spills that can devastate local tourism and fisheries.”

Governors of both Atlantic and Pacific coastal states pushed back on President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to expand offshore drilling during his first tenure in the White House.

In fall 2020, Trump announced he was withdrawing federal waters off the Atlantic Coast from Virginia to Florida from the possibility of drilling for oil and gas. The 10-year moratorium he established ends in 2032.

Michelle Bivins, Oceana’s Carolinas Field Campaigns representative, said Monday afternoon that Biden’s announcement “essentially codifies those protections and makes them permanent.”

“As for Trump reversing this policy once he’s in office, during his last presidency he protected the South Atlantic from the threat of offshore drilling for almost 10 years, following bipartisan support. He knows that coastal economies and businesses depend on healthy, oil-free oceans,” she said.

Shortly after the White House announced the ban Monday morning, the American Petroleum Institute, or API, released a statement calling for the reversal of Biden’s withdrawal the offshore areas from future oil and natural gas leasing.

“American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it,” API President and CEO Mike Sommers stated in a release. “Congress and the incoming administration should fully leverage the nation’s vast offshore resources as a critical source of affordable energy, government revenue and stability around the world. We urge policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”

Two separate but similar letters – one signed by members of the U.S. Senate, the other signed by House representatives – calling late last year for Biden to implement the ban pointed out that presidential withdrawals had not been successfully challenged in court.

Trump in 2017 reversed Obama’s Arctic and Atlantic withdrawals. A district court judge in Alaska ruled presidents do not have authority under the law, in this case the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, to revoke prior withdrawals.

“A large-scale withdrawal of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Eastern Gulf from fossil fuel development while maintain the development of renewable energy solutions would provide durable protections for these critical areas,” according to the Dec. 19, 2024, letter signed by nine U.S. senators.

The areas included in the withdrawal encompass more than 625 million acres, the largest in the country’s history, according to the U.S. Department of Interior.

“President Biden’s actions today are part of our work across this Administration to make bold and enduring changes that recognize the impact of oil and gas drilling on our nation’s coastlines,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a release. “Today, the President is taking action that reflects what states, Tribes and local communities have shared with us – a strong and overwhelming need to support resilient oceans and coastlines by protecting them from unnecessary oil and gas development.”

The withdrawals do not affect rights under existing leases, of which there are about 30 off the southern California coast and about a dozen in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to the release.

In fiscal 2023, production in the outer continental shelf resulted in about 675 million barrels of oil and 796 billion cubic feet of gas. Almost all of that production is in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, “where industry has yet to produce on more than 80 percent of the 12 million acres already under lease,” according to the release.

The current leasing program that runs through 2029 includes three potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico planning areas. Those areas are not included in the withdrawal.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., met in their home state Monday for a roundtable discussion, where they pushed to permanently ban offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic Ocean while emphasizing the need to fight the climate crisis and protect marine mammals and their habitats.

The New Jersey senators are among a handful of lawmakers, including Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Rep. Deborah Ross, D-N.C., behind reintroducing the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism, or COAST, Anti-Drilling Act.

The bill would permanently prohibit the Department of Interior from issuing leases for the exploration, development, or production of oil and gas in the North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida planning areas of the U.S. outer continental shelf. 

The House referred the bill March 1, the day it was introduced, to the Committee on Natural Resources. The committee then referred the bill on March 22 to the subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. At the Senate level, the bill has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Ross said last month that the anti-drilling act would “protect North Carolina’s coastline and the state’s robust tourism, recreation, and fishing industries from offshore drilling.”

The state’s economy and way of life are rooted in our natural environment, she added.

“Our state depends on a pristine coastline and a clean and healthy marine ecosystem to support robust tourism, recreation, and fishing economies — the lifelines of our coastal communities. I’m proud to introduce the Defend Our Coast Act to prevent offshore oil and gas drilling along the mid-Atlantic seaboard and I will never stop fighting to protect North Carolina’s priceless environmental heritage for future generations,” Ross said.

Diane Hoskins, Oceana campaign director, said in a statement that the measure would safeguard our oceans and marine life.

“The Defend Our Coast Act puts a permanent end to drilling in the Mid-Atlantic Planning Area and would protect tourism, fishing, and recreation that depend on a healthy ocean and oil-free beaches,” Hoskins said.

Pallone introduced similar bills in 1989, 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001. Then, in July 2001, he introduced the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism Anti-Drilling Act. A version of that bill has been reintroduced several times since, most recently in May 2021. It was read twice and referred by the Senate to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

In January 2021, President Biden issued an executive order pausing new leases for onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling on federal land and water. The reintroduction of this anti-drilling act coincides with a bipartisan effort across the country to permanently ban offshore drilling in U.S. federal waters in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico, according to a news release from Booker’s office Monday.

“As the world transitions to a clean economy, there’s simply no logical reason to put our coastal communities and ocean ecosystems at risk with unnecessary and dangerous drilling off our coast. Emissions from offshore drilling fuel the climate crisis and threaten vulnerable coastal communities and wildlife,” Pallone said in 2021.

Menendez, who co-sponsored the bill in 2021, said at the time that “as we turn the corner on COVID-19, the last thing we need is to open our coast up for a man-made disaster like an oil spill that threatens an already fragile economy. A massive oil spill off our coastline would be devastating to the environment and hinder the economy’s ability to fully recover from COVID-19 and natural disasters like Superstorm Sandy. COAST draws a line in the sand and forever bans the exploration and drilling for oil and gas in the Atlantic.”

After the bill to permanently end offshore drilling was reintroduced, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., on March 14 introduced his “Lower Energy Costs Act,” that the House approved March 30.

That bill would “increase domestic energy production, including in the Gulf of Mexico, reform the permitting process for all industries, reverse anti-energy policies advanced by the Biden Administration, streamline energy infrastructure and exports, and boost the production and processing of critical minerals.”

The act would also give the Secretary of the Interior authority to “immediately resume quarterly onshore oil and gas lease sales in compliance with the Mineral Leasing Act.”

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., introduced the Senate companion to Scalise’s bill March 22.

An international advocacy group released Wednesday a state-based analyses detailing the economic benefits of banning new offshore drilling for the East and West coasts.  

In the report, Oceana, an organization dedicated to ocean conservation, looked at data on ocean-dependent jobs and fishing, tourism and recreation revenue along the coasts of Atlantic and Pacific states, North Carolina, and Florida’s Gulf coast.

Based on Oceana’s findings in January, findings suggest that ending new leasing for offshore oil and gas in the United States could prevent more than 19 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions as well as more than $720 billion in damages. Ending new leasing also will support around 3.3 million American jobs and $250 billion in gross domestic product, according to the organization.

The analysis for North Carolina says that the state has 3,375 miles of coastline that supports 62,000 jobs with a clean coast economy. Tourism, recreation and fishing bring in about $3.1 billion. Additionally, the economically recoverable oil and gas resources would only meet demand for roughly 65 days of oil and 57 days of gas. A catastrophic oil spill would pose a great risk to North Carolina’s coastal economies that depend on a healthy ocean.

For the East Coast, offshore drilling threatens more than 1.6 million jobs and about $127 billion for seven month’s worth of oil and six month’s worth of gas, the analysis finds.

The House Committee on Natural Resources proposed Monday a legislative measure that would permanently protect the Atlantic, Pacific and Eastern Gulf of Mexico from future offshore drilling. Additionally, the Biden-Harris administration is expected to release an interim report on the federal oil and gas leasing program, which Oceana officials said “must result in an end to new leasing for offshore drilling.”

Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said that to protect coastal economies and combat climate change, “we must stop looking for new fossil fuels in the ocean.”

Hoskins said in a news release that the new state-level analysis offers the clearest picture yet of the economic dangers associated with expanded offshore drilling. Permanent protections will safeguard states’ tourism, recreation, and fishing industries and prevent climate pollution that is incompatible with addressing the climate crisis.

“President Biden has taken bold, swift action on climate, which stands in stark contrast to the denial of climate change and the attacks our oceans and coasts faced during the previous administration. Now, President Biden and Congress must go further to ensure our coasts are permanently protected from new offshore drilling,” Hoskins said.

Oceana reports that the following oppose or are concerned over offshore drilling activities:

• Every East and West Coast governor, including North Carolina’s Gov. Roy Cooper.
• More than 390 local municipalities, 2,300 local, state and federal bipartisan officials, 120 scientists and 80 former military leaders.
• Alliances representing more than 56,000 businesses on both coasts.
• Pacific, New England, South Atlantic, and Mid-Atlantic fishery management councils and commercial and recreational fishing interests
• Department of Defense, NASA, U.S. Air Force and Florida Defense Support Task Force

A federal judge in Louisiana this week blocked President Biden’s targeted pause of offshore oil and gas leasing.

The pause was a key part of an effort by the administration to address climate change. The president in January signed an executive order that paused new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters while the Interior Department reviews its leasing and permitting practices related to fossil fuel development and outlines ways to double renewable energy production from offshore wind by 2030.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in February announced that it was rescinding the record of decision for a Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale that was expected to occur in March.

U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty, in granting the preliminary injunction sought by Louisiana and 12 other states, said the pause on pending lease sales violated congressional mandates and the agencies involved lacked authority.

The other plaintiff states were Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

“The Plaintiff States’ claims are substantial,” Doughty wrote in the decision. “Millions and possibly billions of dollars are at stake. Local government funding, jobs for Plaintiff State workers, and funds for the restoration of Louisiana’s Coastline are at stake. Plaintiff States have a reliance interest in the proceeds derived from offshore and on land oil and gas lease sales.”

The judge said that the public interest is served when the law is followed.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said Wednesday the agency would abide by the ruling.

In response to the ruling, National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito issued a statement calling on the administration to immediately resume Gulf of Mexico lease sales.

“As NOIA has consistently commented, the Department of the Interior is required by law to expeditiously develop America’s energy resources, and this includes the obligation to schedule and hold offshore oil and gas lease sales,” Milito said. “Today’s ruling simply confirms the legal requirements. Any pause of American energy opportunities will do untold harm towards American economic, energy and environmental progress.”

In a statement, Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins called the ruling “deeply flawed and wrong.” She said fossil-fuel-driven climate change is wreaking havoc on the lives and livelihoods of all Americans, and President Biden’s leasing pause represents a critical and overdue reckoning.

“While the Court took issue with the pause, the Biden-Harris administration is well within its authority to limit further leasing for offshore drilling to protect coastal communities and economies. The impacts of dirty and dangerous offshore drilling are clear from disasters like BP’s Deepwater Horizon blowout. To avert even worse impacts from climate change, we must accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy like offshore wind. It is no longer in the public interest to continue down a path of unchecked dirty energy. We owe a serious evaluation to our kids, grandchildren, and all future generations.”

Two voices from Carteret County are expected to join with officials, advocacy representatives and business leaders from across the nation to discuss the future of offshore oil and gas drilling.

Register online for the 2 p.m. Tuesday, June 1, webinar, National Business Coalition Roundtable: Protecting Our Coast and Creating a Thriving Clean Coastal Economy.

Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton and Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast President Tom Kies, who also serves as president of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce based in Morehead City, will join a Biden administration adviser to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on the webinar.

Also participating in the are Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast founding member Vipe Desai, Florida Gulf Coast Business Coalition Chair Robin Miller, Florida marina owner Capt. Dylan Hubbard, OCEANA Campaign Director Offshore Drilling Diane Hoskins, and OCEANA Massachusetts field representative Nancy Downes.

Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic, Oceana Massachusetts, Florida Gulf Coast Business Coalition and Business Alliance for Protecting the Pacific Coast are hosting the webinar.

Organizers note that the event is nonpartisan and the participation of any political candidate should not be considered an endorsement.

On Sept. 8, President Trump signed an order prohibiting offshore leasing for energy exploration, development or production off the coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Trump said Sept. 25 during an event he would add North Carolina and Virginia to the moratorium.

Though not explicitly stated in the executive orders, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has confirmed that wind energy is included in the withdrawal.

“The withdrawal includes all energy leasing, including conventional and renewable energy, beginning on July 1, 2022. No new leases will be issued offshore North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, for a 10-year period beginning July 1, 2022,” Stephen Boutwell, BOEM spokesperson, told Coastal Review Online Wednesday.

Trump signed the memorandum Sept. 25 that states, “I hereby withdraw from disposition by leasing for 10 years, beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending on June 30, 2032: The portion of the area designated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as the Mid Atlantic Planning Area that lies south of the northern administrative boundary of North Carolina,” as that administrative boundary depicted on the Atlantic NAD 83 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Administrative Boundaries map. The memorandum does not appear to include Virginia.

The memorandum also states, “This withdrawal prevents consideration of this area for any leasing for purposes of exploration, development, or production during the 10-year period beginning on July 1, 2022, and ending on June 30, 2032.”

The move to prohibit renewable energy is counter to a June 2017 proclamation from the White House. “Today, our offshore areas remain underutilized and often unexplored.  We have yet to fully leverage new technologies and unleash the forces of economic innovation to more fully develop and explore our ocean economy. In the field of energy, we have just begun to tap the potential of our oceans’ oil and gas, wind, wave, and tidal resources to power the Nation,” according to the proclamation.

The president announced Sept. 8 in Jupiter, Florida, the order to extend an earlier moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and expand it to Florida’s Atlantic Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. North Carolina and Virginia were not included.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced Sept. 21 that he had spoken with Trump who agreed North Carolina would be included in the presidential memorandum withdrawing new leasing for offshore oil and gas developments. Trump did not immediately confirm Tillis’ announcement.

National Ocean Industries Association, or NOIA, President Erik Milito told Coastal Review Online Wednesday that the interest and optimism in Atlantic offshore wind projects cannot be understated, and this includes opportunities offshore of the Carolinas.

“BOEM previously identified three proposed wind areas, not to mention one active lease offshore North Carolina, and four call areas offshore South Carolina. Wood Mackenzie published a report last month on the impact of expected near-term offshore wind leases, and a lease block offshore the Carolinas was included. That lease sale was predicted to support 37,000 jobs annually and $44.9 billion in total capital investment. The market is ready, it is just a matter of access,” he said.

Andrew Hutson, Audubon North Carolina executive director and National Audubon Society vice president, said in a statement Tuesday that “Banning offshore wind despite growing demand makes no sense and will be devastating for North Carolina’s clean energy economy, businesses, and workers. It’s bad news for birds too. When properly sited, wind power not only coexists with birds — it makes wildlife populations and local communities more resilient by cutting down on harmful carbon pollution.”

Sharon Martin, spokesperson for the state Department of Environmental Quality, told Coastal Review Online Wednesday that North Carolina will continue to implement and remains committed to Executive Order 80 and transitioning the state to a clean energy economy, which includes achieving a 70% reduction in power sector GHG emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.

“The NC Clean Energy Plan is a roadmap of actions to help NC achieve those goals. The state continues to implement the NC Clean Energy Plan, NC Zero-Emission Vehicle Plan, and other aspects of EO 80 and we will continue working to take advantage of the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy, while protecting coastal communities from the threat of offshore drilling,” she said.

According to the Sept. 25 memorandum, “nothing in this withdrawal affects the rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas,” which would include Avangrid Renewables’ Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project that will be developed more than 27 miles from the Outer Banks.

Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind is a proposed offshore wind energy project to be built in the Kitty Hawk Wind Energy Area, designated by BOEM. The commercial lease for the 122,405-acre area was awarded to Avangrid Renewables by BOEM in 2017. The company, which has been studying the area since, launched in July an advanced meteorological buoy, according to the clean energy company headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

Once complete, Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind is projected to have a generation capacity of up to 2,500 megawatts, or enough to power about 700,000 homes.

BOEM since 2009 has been responsible for offshore renewable energy development in federal waters. The program began when the Department of the Interior, or DOI, announced the final regulations for the Outer Continental Shelf Renewable Energy Program authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. These regulations provide a framework for all of the activities needed to support production and transmission of energy from sources other than oil and natural gas, according to BOEM. These include offshore wind energy, ocean wave energy, ocean current energy and offshore solar.

This isn’t the first roadblock for offshore wind energy production.

In August 2019, the Department of the Interior formally decided to delay Vineyard Wind, the first large-scale offshore wind energy project in the U.S. planned for 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, to conduct a supplemental study.

The decision contrasts with bipartisan support for offshore wind from federal and state officials, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

“The Department of the Interior’s regrettable decision to further delay the review of the Vineyard Wind project undermines the Trump administration’s American energy dominance agenda and a major U.S. economic growth opportunity. Offshore wind development is expected to result in a $70 billion investment into the American energy supply chain,” said Tom Kiernan, AWEA CEO, in a statement at the time.

In February of this year, the Trump administration provided a revised Vineyard Wind Offshore Wind Facility permitting timeline. The permits will be issued by the EPA in March of 2021, pushing completion well past the intended 2022 date.

Trump has made false statements about wind turbines in the past, particularly about those on land, stating that if the wind stops blowing, your power will turn off. He has said that turbines kill birds including Bald Eagles and that production of the turbines in China and Germany creates “tremendous fumes.” He said few are made in the United States.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, wind energy is fed into the U.S. power grid via transmission lines that connect a variety of energy sources. “Grid operators use the interconnected power system to access other forms of generation when contingencies occur and continually turn generators on and off when needed to meet the overall grid demand.”

The EPA also states that birds and bats are only occasionally killed in collisions with wind turbines and that bird kills are limited to less than 0.02% of the total populations of songbird species, “and orders of magnitude less than other causes.”

Also, most components of wind turbines installed in the United States are manufactured in the county, according to the EPA.

The Department of Energy did not respond to Coastal Review Online’s request for comment for this report.

The American Wind Energy Association declined to comment.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., announced this week that President Trump had agreed to prevent drilling for oil and natural gas off the North Carolina coast, but the president has yet to speak publicly on the matter, and his administration says it is still moving forward with permitting for seismic exploration in the Atlantic.

Tillis, whom polls show trailing his Democratic Party challenger Cal Cunningham, announced Monday that Trump had agreed to add North Carolina to a multistate moratorium on Atlantic offshore drilling announced earlier this month.

The president announced Sept. 8 during an event in Jupiter, Florida, an order to extend the moratorium on offshore drilling on Florida’s Gulf Coast and expand it to Florida’s Atlantic Coast, as well as the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. North Carolina was not included at the time.

Tillis said Monday that he had spoken with Trump who agreed North Carolina would be included in the presidential memorandum withdrawing new leasing for offshore oil and gas developments for the next 12 years.

Also on Monday, the Department of Justice filed a document with the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, Charleston Division, stating that Trump’s memorandum “has no legal effect” on the status of the applications to conduct seismic surveys in the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf that are pending before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“If Trump were remotely serious about protecting Florida and the Carolinas from offshore drilling, he wouldn’t be allowing oil exploration along the coast,” Kristen Monsell of the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund said in a statement. “This Justice Department filing underscores the appalling emptiness of Trump’s election-year effort to hoodwink voters. Seismic testing’s sonic blasts harm whales and other marine life, and they set the stage for future drilling and devastating oil spills.”

The process for the pending seismic permits requires two sets of approvals, one from the National Marine Fisheries Service for incidental harassment authorizations, or IHAs, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the BOEM permits allowing the companies to conduct the seismic surveys.

The ongoing challenge, which is a consolidation of two previously separate cases, claims that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued Incidental Harassment Authorizations, or IHAs, in November 2018. The permits authorizing five companies to harm or harass marine mammals while conducting seismic surveys in waters from Cape May, New Jersey, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, are set to expire in November.

The court has scheduled a status conference for Oct, 1, Monsell told Coastal Review Online in an interview Thursday.

“The agency has been issued a process by which they can extend the effectiveness of IHAs for a year. And so, it’s possible the agency could try and invoke that extension here to have the permits effective for another year, but they haven’t yet done so and their filing was silent on that piece and what their what their intentions are,” said Monsell.

She said the status conference set for next month will include discussion of documents the government is trying to keep from becoming public that point to political interference by officials in Washington, D.C., especially regarding measures that government scientists wanted to include help ensure additional productions were in place for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

“So, the rest of the briefing schedule on the case is sort of tied off of when the court rules on whether or not those documents can can come in,” Monsell said.

The groups suing the federal government contend that seismic testing could harm dolphins, whales and other animals. The plaintiffs contend that the seismic testing will occur around the “world’s densest population of acoustically sensitive beaked whales off North Carolina’s Outer Banks.”

Drilling opponents welcomed Tillis’ announcement earlier this week.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation on Wednesday thanked those who had spoken out against offshore drilling.

“Offshore drilling and seismic surveying for oil and gas exploration are not the types of activities that are compatible with our vibrant coastal environment and economy. Thank you to everyone that contacted their local, state, and federal representatives to request they pursue action that expands the moratorium for North Carolina and the entire Atlantic Coast,” the federation said in a statement.

Tom Kies of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, which opposes seismic testing and oil exploration off the Atlantic Coast and supports offshore wind, told Coastal Review Online Wednesday that earlier this year he had a virtual visit to Tillis’ office to discuss offshore oil and seismic testing. Kies also serves as president of the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce.

“At the time, we were pleasantly surprised to see the positive response. I’m gratified that both Thom Tillis and Gov. Cooper have the best interests of the North Carolina coast in mind. I’m disappointed, however, that the moratorium doesn’t stop seismic testing,” he said. “And I have a concern that because this is a moratorium by presidential memo, it could rescinded as quickly as it was agreed to. Tourism is the driver in our economy here on the coast and the last thing we need is anything that might affect that.”

He added that he would feel better once Trump confirms the announcement.

On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper noted the lack of confirmation from the Trump administration that it will extend the offshore drilling moratorium to North Carolina’s waters, as stated in Tillis’ announcement.

“It’s good the President finally appears to have listened to the bipartisan voices of North Carolinians who for years have been fighting this administration to stop oil drilling off our coast. I will stay vigilant and ready to resume the fight in the event the federal government makes any move toward offshore drilling,” Cooper said.

The Cooper administration also emphasized that there have been repeated attempts to get the president to protect the state’s coast and economy from the dangers of drilling and oil exploration.

Cooper had urged in a letter dated Sept. 15 that the Trump administration include North Carolina in the moratorium.

In 2018, Trump announced plans to open nearly all federal waters to offshore drilling in his draft five-year program for oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf. He later granted Florida an exemption from that program after objections from Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

In early September, a Texas-based company withdrew its permit application to conduct seismic surveys for oil and natural gas off the coast of the Carolinas.

The Sept. 4 letter from WesternGeco LLC Vice President Adil Mukhitov to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, served as formal notice of company’s withdrawal of its application.

The letter was made public before Trump’s Sept. 8 announcement to expand the moratorium on offshore drilling.

The proposed survey area spanned from the northern border of Virginia to the southern border of South Carolina, including the entire coast of North Carolina, per a state Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management document.

DCM denied in June 2019 permits for the company to conduct geological and geophysical surveys in the Atlantic. The state agency determined that the proposal was incomplete, inconsistent with the state’s enforceable coastal management policies, and would harm fish and other marine life and put at risk coastal habitats and the coastal marine economy, according to DCM.

The Commerce Department overruled the state’s objection to WesternGeco’s permit in June.

President Trump signed an order Tuesday to expand a moratorium on offshore drilling off Florida’s Gulf Coast.

The order takes the potential environmental threat off the table for 10 years for the Atlantic coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Trump announced the action during an event in Jupiter, Florida.

In a statement released Tuesday, the White House said Trump had made promoting a clean and healthy environment a top priority.

“Every day of my presidency, we will fight for a cleaner environment and a better quality of life for every one of our great citizens,” Trump said in the statement.

Trump during his tenure has worked to reverse numerous environmental protections, including restrictions on offshore drilling put in place during the Obama administration. In 2018, Trump announced plans to open nearly all federal waters to offshore drilling in his draft five-year program for oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf. He later granted Florida an exemption from that program after objections from Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Environmental advocates said it remained unclear what the president’s latest decision means for North Carolina and other East Coast states.

“This is not a reason to celebrate because oil spills don’t stop at state lines,” said Sierra Weaver, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “As long as any part of the Atlantic coast is open to drilling, all Atlantic states are at risk. Keep the champagne corked until the entire Atlantic coast is protected.”

The SELC noted that oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster reached five states.

The National Ocean Industries Association also responded Tuesday, saying American offshore oil and gas production benefits every American.

“American offshore production produces energy with a comparatively smaller footprint than other producing regions, occurs under the highest level of regulations and standards and does not give rise to issues of environmental justice,” NOIA President Erik Milito said in a statement. “Furthermore, daily experience in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico shows how offshore production goes hand-in-hand with environmental stewardship, national defense and other industries, including fishing and tourism.

“Our preference should always be to produce homegrown American energy, instead of deferring future production to countries like Russia and Iran, which do not share American values. Limiting access to our offshore energy resources only shortchanges America and dulls our national outlook.”

RALEIGH – Citing risks to the environment and the coastal economy, Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein announced Wednesday that the state has appealed a federal decision to override the state’s objection to a company’s plan for offshore seismic testing.

Stein’s announcement said the decision could have significant impacts on North Carolina’s fishing and tourism industries.

“Protecting our state’s beautiful natural resources – and the critical economic benefits they bring to our state – is one of the most important mandates of my job,” Stein said in the announcement. “North Carolinians have made their views crystal clear: We do not want drilling off our coast. I am going to court to fight on their behalf.”

The complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Northern Division, seeks to reverse the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision in June to override North Carolina’s objection to the consistency certification under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

“North Carolina has been clear, we do not want seismic testing in our coastal waters, or the damage from offshore drilling that could follow,” Cooper said in a statement. “The studies of our waters show little prospect for drilling, and the environmental damage to our coast could be irreparable if seismic testing goes forward.”

WesternGeco is one of five companies seeking to conduct seismic exploration in the Atlantic.

In June 2019, the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management objected to WesternGeco’s proposal to conduct a geological and geophysical survey off the North Carolina coast. The objection came after public hearings and comments and new information from scientific researchers.

“We will continue to take all necessary actions to protect our coastal resources and economy,” said DEQ Secretary Michael S. Regan. “These destructive activities are not welcome off the North Carolina coastline. We support the communities along our coast who have vehemently opposed seismic testing that would lead to offshore drilling.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Offshore drilling opponents are lauding the U.S. House’s approval of legislation that would block the expansion of offshore oil drilling activities, a measure that opponents say would cost American jobs and energy security.

In a 224-189 vote Friday, the House passed a package of four fiscal 2021 appropriations bills. The $36.8 billion Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill includes a provision that restricts funding for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s offshore oil and gas activities to only those planning areas included in the current 2017–2022 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing program, published in November 2016.

The restriction applies to the enabling steps prior to offshore leasing, including the issuance of permits for geological and geophysical, or seismic, exploration.

“Recent reporting, statements from administration officials and President Trump’s own statements make it alarmingly clear – absent congressional action – the president intends to radically expand offshore drilling. Today’s action by U.S. House of Representatives to block offshore drilling underscores the overwhelming opposition to dirty and dangerous offshore drilling. President Trump’s plan to expand offshore drilling to nearly all U.S. waters is completely at odds with the interests of coastal communities that have the most to lose from drilling disasters. The president has not wavered in his efforts to expand drilling at a time when the last thing our coastal communities and their economies need is the added threat of a drilling disaster,” said Oceana Campaign Director Diane Hoskins.

Oceana noted that opposition to new drilling includes every East and West Coast governor, alliances totaling more than 56,000 businesses and more than 380 coastal communities. More than 120 marine scientists and 80 military leaders have also spoken out in letters to Congress and the White House opposing drilling, citing the environmental and national security threat expanded drilling poses, according to Oceana.

The National Ocean Industries Association, which represents the offshore energy industry, said the bill’s language would outsource American energy security and jobs.

“Legislation that locks away U.S. offshore oil and natural gas production will only shift domestic energy production abroad,” said NOIA President Erik Milito in a statement after the bill’s passage. “We would be outsourcing U.S. national and energy security and the jobs of the 345,000 men and women who keep American offshore energy flowing through the strongest environmental and safety standards in the world. Foreign producers, such as Russia and China’s state-backed energy companies, will be more than happy to make up that gap in production.”

The four spending bills include numerous provisions that Republicans and the White House see as dealbreakers, including those that would require the National Park Service to remove statues and plaques commemorating the Confederacy.

The Interior-Environment bill “represents the largest investment in our environment and our communities since 2010,” said House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Chair Rep. Betty McCollum who is a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. “This bill moves us forward – by investing our resources in ways that keep our communities safe and healthy, investing in the protection and preservation of our landscapes and biodiversity, and investing in the arts and humanities. It also moves us in the right direction to meet the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities to our Native American brothers and sisters, increasing funding for Indian Health, education, and more. Finally, this bill takes steps to confront our nation’s legacy of racial injustice by removing hateful Confederate symbols from our national parks, because our public spaces must be open and inviting to all. With this bill, we are committed to investing in helping our nation combat the concurrent crises of climate change, tribal health disparities, and environmental justice. I’m proud that this bill reflects the priorities of the American people.”

More than 100 scientists, including several based in North Carolina, are urging the president and Congress to stop plans to expand offshore drilling.

The scientists in a letter call attention to offshore oil drilling fueling climate change, which threatens all human health and livelihoods.

“If we continue on our current path, the expected increases in temperature, increases in extreme weather, and rising sea levels will wreak havoc on coastal communities. These catastrophic impacts will displace people and create geopolitical instability,” the letter states.

Oceana, an ocean conservation advocacy group, announced the letter Monday on World Oceans Day following Trump reaffirming his plan to expand offshore drilling in a proclamation addressing National Ocean Month.

The scientists warn expanded drilling threatens marine life and coastal economies. The letter calls for all coasts to be protected from another catastrophe like the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2018, President Trump announced plans to open nearly all U.S. federal waters to offshore drilling in his draft five-year program for oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf.  In March, Dr. Walter Cruickshank, the acting director for Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, testified before Congress that the drilling plan is a “multi-year process that is still underway.”

The scientists join the growing bipartisan opposition to this plan, including every governor on the  East and West coasts, alliances totaling more than 56,000 businesses and more than 380 coastal communities.

Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said Monday that the fact that scientists are sounding the alarm on the threat of pollution, fueling climate change and catastrophic drilling disasters from offshore drilling should be a wake-up call.

“Opposition to President Trump’s offshore drilling plan is strong and growing. It’s time for President Trump to listen, instead of using World Oceans Month as an opportunity to double down on support for offshore drilling. These scientists highlight the immense risks that come with expanded drilling and are taking a stand against bringing these risks to new coastal communities,” she said. “The BP disaster caused unimaginable economic and environmental devastation. Instead of learning lessons from the BP disaster, President Trump is proposing to radically expand offshore drilling. It is not too late to reverse course. The president’s offshore drilling plan is still a preventable disaster.”

Commissioners in the Bogue Banks town of Indian Beach are now on record as opposing offshore oil and gas exploration and offshore seismic testing.

The town board, during its regular meeting Wednesday, unanimously adopted a resolution of opposition, the Carteret County News-Times reported.

With the passing of the resolution, the 45th in the state, all coastal municipalities now have passed resolutions opposing offshore oil and gas exploration and offshore seismic testing, according to Randy Sturgill, senior campaign organizer for Oceana’s southeast region.

Sturgill said in a statement that this is a big win for the state, “bringing the tally of coastal communities opposed to oil exploration off the state to 100 percent. It’s a true show of the hard work that folks on the ground have done to push this town council in the right direction. Thank you for protecting our coast.”

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH – Drilling for oil off the North Carolina coast would pose a substantial threat to the environment onshore, according to a newly released study by an environmental research group.

Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center’s Offshore Drilling, Onshore Damage delves into a series of possible adverse impacts offshore drilling would have on land well beyond state’s beaches.

The report released Wednesday highlights the infrastructure needed on land to support offshore drilling.

Construction of pipelines and potential ruptures of those lines, the possibility of spills at marine and port terminals, construction or expansion of oil refineries, and on-land disposal of offshore waste generated from drilling are “less known, but no less real,” according to the report.

“This report tells that lesser known piece of the story,” said Jean-Luc Duvall, Environment North Carolina’s campaign director.

Duvall spoke Wednesday at the Blockade Runner in Wrightsville Beach, where a small group of opponents to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling gathered for a press conference launching the official release of the report.

The Trump administration wants to open much of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans off the U.S. coast to offshore oil and gas drilling.

Plans to expand offshore drilling were placed on hold earlier this year after a federal judge ruled in late March that President Donald Trump’s 2017 order to revoke the Obama administration’s ban on oil and gas drilling in Atlantic and Arctic was illegal.

The Trump administration appealed the ruling.

Most governors, including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts oppose the plan.

North Carolina’s Coastal Resources Commission in April unanimously passed a resolution opposing offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling off the state’s coast. Most coastal cities and towns in the state have adopted similar resolutions.

“There’s too much to risk on one drop of oil to land on our shores,” Rep. Deb Butler, D-New Hanover, said to reporters following Wednesday’s press conference.

Butler, who has been outspoken in her opposition to drilling for oil and gas off the North Carolina coast, spoke at the press conference.

“In North Carolina alone, offshore oil and gas development threatens nearly 57,000 jobs and over $2.5 billion in gross domestic product,” Butler said. “To date, more than 42,000 business owners, 500,000 fishing families, and countless elected officials along our coast as well as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, have come together to reject the risks of offshore oil and gas development. We have seen how the movie ends, we have seen the damage that the BP oil spill had on communities in the Gulf Coast, and we want no part of it.”

Environment North Carolina’s report calls attention to real-life examples of failed pipelines, oil spills at port terminals and the release of oil from storm-damaged structures into the environment.

One such example is the 2015 release of more than 120,000 gallons of crude oil west of Santa Barbara, California, where an onshore, underground pipeline transporting oil from drilling platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel to inland refineries ruptured.

“Oil flowed into the ocean, coated birds and mammals, and forced the closure of two state beaches,” according to the report.

Pacific Ocean waves lapped oil onto beaches some 80 miles south of the spill site. Nearly 100 mammals and more than 200 birds were killed. Local fisheries closed.

Three years after the spill pipeline operator Plains All American Pipeline was found guilty of, among other violations, failing to maintain the pipeline and was fined more than $2 million, according to the report.

The company has applied for permits to replace the ruptured line.

Between 1999 and 2013, more than 40,000 gallons of oil spilled from tankers docked in port in U.S. waters, according to the report.

And, on Grand Bahama island, more than 2 million gallons of oil spilled from onshore oil storage facilities damaged during Hurricane Dorian last August, Duvall said as he displayed a photograph taken after the storm of storage tanks with missing roofs at the facility.

The changing climate, which is producing stronger, more frequent hurricanes, and rising seas, will only exacerbate the threat of spills from onshore energy infrastructure, opponents of offshore drilling say.

The report cites cases of air pollution created from oil refinery operations in states including Texas, which has the largest refinery in the country.

Environment North Carolina’s report concludes with a number of recommendations, including a national, permanent ban on expanding offshore drilling and closing existing offshore facilities and pursing public policies to reduce oil and gas dependence in the country.

“This will avoid the need for new or expanded onshore infrastructure to support increased production of oil and gas, as well as the risks to marine ecosystems and beaches posed by offshore drilling itself,” according to the report. “States should seek to protect coastal areas by blocking construction of new infrastructure or the expansion of existing infrastructure needed to support expanded offshore drilling. States, not the federal government, control permitting and siting decisions for onshore infrastructure. They should use this authority to help protect communities and ecosystems.”

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon is among around 30 leaders from 13 coastal states heading to Washington, D.C., this week to urge lawmakers on Capitol Hill to maintain offshore drilling protections passed this summer by the House of Representatives.

The effort, coordinated by the conservation organization Oceana, comes as Congress prepares to hammer out details of the 2020 Fiscal Year spending plan. And it’s another chapter in a longstanding battle over offshore drilling that was re-ignited in early 2017 when newly elected President Donald Trump signed an executive order restarting the process of opening the Atlantic, and other waters, to offshore energy exploration.

The protections include two amendments to the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill that would block offshore drilling expansion during Fiscal Year 2020 in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, along with the eastern Gulf of Mexico. A third amendment would block funding for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to issue permits for seismic air gun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. The goal of the coastal delegation is to lobby lawmakers to protect those amendments as they wind their way through the federal budget process.

“We’re here to send a message to protect those provisions as they go through [the budget process],” Cahoon said during a Nov. 12 interview. “This is the message of Nags Head. Offshore drilling is bad for us … we have a wonderful economy that supports the community and protects the environment.”

Cahoon and others in the delegation, which includes business leaders, conservation advocates and local and state elected officials, are scheduled to meet with lawmakers Wednesday and Thursday in anticipation of upcoming federal budget negotiations. The federal budget year begins Oct. 1, however Congress passed a continuing resolution in September that was signed by Trump to fund the government through Nov. 21.

The delegation’s visit also comes after a federal judge’s ruling this spring that shut down the Trump Administration’s plans to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic. The ruling caused Trump officials to sideline, at least temporarily, larger plans to expand drilling off the nation’s coasts.

Cahoon is joined on Capitol Hill by two other North Carolina officials – Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton and Carteret County Chamber of Commerce President Tom Kies, who also serves as president of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast.

Cahoon said the group would be meeting with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and also hoped to meet with Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., who recently won the special election to succeed the late Walter Jones Jr. and who represents the Outer Banks.

“It’s a priority for me to meet (Murphy) and bring him the message that the Outer Banks is unified in opposition to offshore drilling,” said Cahoon.

An outspoken opponent of offshore drilling, Cahoon co-hosted a Mayoral Roundtable to Protect Our North Carolina Coast in May in which nearly a dozen mayors attended to show solidarity in their opposition.

At the event, North Carolina Secretary of the Department of Environment Quality Michael Regan cautioned those at the meeting not to let their guard down when it came to the campaign against offshore drilling. “We have to remain vigilant in opposition to the drilling off our coast and we have to be prepared to protect our communities,” he said.

In a Nov. 12 press release, Oceana also emphasized that the battle is far from over.

“For decades, Congress upheld offshore drilling moratoriums through the Interior-Environment funding bill,” the release stated. “While the Trump administration delayed plans to expand offshore drilling to new areas, the January 2018 proposal to open over 90 percent of federal waters to offshore drilling remains on the table.”

In a related matter, another Dare County mayor was traveling last week as part of an effort to oppose offshore drilling. Outgoing Kill Devil Hills Mayor Sheila Davies was invited to Nova Scotia by the Council of Canadians to speak about the town’s and county’s fight to oppose offshore drilling. That group, along with Nova Scotia Offshore Alliance, announced that a dozen municipal governments there were requesting an inquiry into offshore drilling along with a moratorium.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House approved two measures Wednesday that would permanently ban gas and oil drilling off much of the U.S. coastline, including the North Carolina coast, but the bills are unlikely to get anywhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.

House Resolution 1941, the Coastal and Marine Economies Protection Act, establishes a permanent moratorium on oil and gas leasing along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The bill passed 238-189 with bipartisan support, but North Carolina Reps. Tedd Budd, Virginia Foxx, George Holding, Richard Hudson, Mark Meadows, David Rouzer and Mark Walker, all Republicans, voted against it. Reps. Alma Adams, D-N.C., G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., David Price, D-N.C., voted yes.

Reps. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Francis Rooney, R-Fla., introduced the bill earlier this year after the Trump administration published a draft offshore leasing plan that would open nearly all Atlantic and Pacific coasts to drilling.

“Coastal communities across the country have made it abundantly clear that they want nothing to do with offshore drilling and the devastating threat it poses to our vital natural resources,” Cunningham said in a statement.

The other bill, H.R. 205, the Protecting and Securing Florida’s Coastline Act, would change a 2006 law to permanently block offshore oil and gas leasing off Florida’s Gulf Coast, where a current moratorium is set to expire in 2022. The bill passed 248-180.

Drilling opponents and environmental advocates praised the actions.

“All North Carolinians should be proud of the actions of the U.S. House of Representatives today” said Randy Sturgill, senior campaign organizer at Oceana.  “The coast of North Carolina is a step closer to keeping the dirty and dangerous business of offshore drilling off our beaches and The Atlantic as a whole. We have too much to lose and nothing to gain by handing our pristine ocean waters over to the oil industry.”

Drilling advocates said the bills would affect funding for the Land and Water Conservation Program and domestic energy production’s benefits to the economy, job growth and U.S. energy security.

“Bad policy that closes the door on this critical energy development hurts local economies, America’s energy and national security, and takes America a step in the wrong direction,” said Erik Milito of the American Petroleum Institute.

The group says technological advancements and safer practices have made offshore oil and natural gas production is safer than ever.

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OUTER BANKS – A poll by a Raleigh-based firm on behalf of a business group here finds that more than half of those in the state’s 3rd Congressional District who responded believe offshore drilling is too risky.

In addition to finding that 52.8% of those surveyed say offshore drilling is too risky, 62.8% want the government to reduce regulation in order to allow for more offshore wind development, according to a news release from the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce.

“As the lead advocate for our coastal economy, the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce isn’t surprised that so many residents share our concerns about the devastating impacts offshore drilling could have on our economy,” Karen Brown, President and CEO of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce said in a statement.

The poll of 400 likely general election voters, on behalf of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, Environment North Carolina and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, was conducted by Strategic Partners Solutions. The survey took place the nights of May 18-19 and has a margin of error of 4.9%.

“North Carolinians clearly prefer clean, safe energy from offshore wind power,” said Kayla Calkin, federal campaigns manager for the NRDC Action Fund. “They expect their elected representatives to fight for them and protect the state’s coast from dirty and dangerous offshore drilling.”

There were also concerns about global warming, with 62% saying that global warming is a serious problem compared to 36.8% who said it was not, according to the poll memo.

“Offshore drilling and seismic testing is a dangerous and dirty business. When compared with safe, renewable wind power it’s clear that people see the potential of clean energy while also recognizing that drilling is just too risky for our coast and our climate,” Drew Ball, Director of Environment North Carolina, said in a statement.

The 3rd District includes all or parts of Currituck, Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan, Tyrrell, Dare, Hyde, Beaufort, Pamlico, Carteret, Pitt, Craven, Onslow, Jones, Lenoir and Greene counties.

MANTEO – Even as the Trump administration has put its East Coast offshore oil plans on hold, North Carolina’s environmental officials are rallying the forces to prepare a united front against the proposal.

“We have to remain vigilant in opposition to drilling off our coast,” Michael Regan, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said Wednesday at a roundtable of coastal mayors in Manteo. “Our message has not changed. We sent that message directly to Secretary Zinke and we’re prepared to deliver that same message to Secretary Bernhardt.”

David Bernhardt, who was recently appointed to succeed Ryan Zinke as Interior Secretary, told the The Wall Street Journal in an interview published April 25 that the agency had tabled Atlantic oil lease planning until the outcome of a court case on Artic drilling is decided.

Chairman Bob Woodard & @Townofnagshead Mayor Ben Cahoon are w/ @NCDEQ Sec. Michael Regan today at the “Mayoral Roundtable to Protect North Carolina’s Coast” to continue opposition to offshore drilling & seismic testing. #Dontdrillnc #obx #protectourcoasts pic.twitter.com/GNIRm6Zd9B

— Dare County (@DareCountyGovt) May 8, 2019

The administration in 2017 had proposed opening nearly 90% of the Outer Continental Shelf to oil and natural gas drilling in its 2019-2024 drilling plan, including nine potential, as yet unspecified, sites off the Atlantic coast.

It’s important that Washington sees North Carolina speaking in one voice against opening up the coast to oil exploration, Regan said.

“This is a much-needed conversation,” he said. “This is one of those issues in public discourse which is uniting us as proud North Carolinians and Americans.”

North Carolina Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, both Republicans, voted to approve Bernhardt, a former oil industry lobbyist, and currently support the administration’s proposal to open the coast for oil and gas exploration. Burr, however, had been opposed to drilling in the past and spoke out against lifting the oil drilling moratorium that had been put into effect during the George H.W. Bush administration.

“This is one of those issues in public discourse which is uniting us as proud North Carolinians and Americans.”

Michael Regan, DEQ Secretary

“North Carolina’s coasts are precious resources in our environment and for our state’s economy that must be protected,” Burr said in a June 2005 press release.

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon said the roundtable was partly spurred when he shared with Regan the value of his monthly meetings with other Outer Banks mayors. The realization, they agreed, was that grassroots engagement starts with conversation, and that engagement with people can affect policymaking.

“Their stories have the power to change the hearts and minds,” Cahoon said.

Nearly all coastal communities have expressed opposition to drilling and seismic testing, citing the risk to the environment and marine life from oil spills and industrialization of the ocean.

It is also a huge economic risk, opponents say. Tourism in Dare County alone garners $1.2 billion a year, and visitors are coming for the great fishing and beautiful beaches, said Dare County Board of Commissioners Chair Bob Woodard.

“We cannot under any circumstance allow offshore drilling off our coast,” he said.  “Folks, this isn’t partisan. Look at the lawsuits from Maine all the way to Florida. There is a mix of Democrats, Independents and Republicans.”

“Folks, this isn’t partisan. Look at the lawsuits from Maine all the way to Florida. There is a mix of Democrats, Independents and Republicans.”

Bob Woodard, Chair, Dare County Board of Commissioners

Woodard said he wants his grandchildren to be able to enjoy the beaches without having to worry about pollution. And the federal government, he added, hasn’t tried to sweeten the deal with promises of shared revenue or more jobs.

But examples of the risk, Woodard said, go beyond the famous Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon spills. He cited the Taylor Energy spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which according to numerous news reports, has been leaking for more than 14 years, and continues to leak thousands of gallons of oil a day.

“Let’s keep this from happening,” Woodard said. “Folks, it ain’t worth it.”

The bottom line is that oil is not compatible with an economy and a lifestyle based on clean beaches and water, said Surf City Mayor Douglas Medlin.

“It kills everything,” he said. “We wouldn’t have anything, anywhere. All these families that grew up over all these generations wouldn’t have anything.”

‘Don’t Let This Happen to North Carolina’

Medlin recalled that a “small” oil spill from a Texaco tanker that broke apart during a storm off Cape Hatteras in 1971 resulted in months of oil pollution on the beach. And the Trump administration’s decision last week to ease drilling regulations offered no assurances, he added.

“Not strengthening,” Medlin said emphatically. “Easing!”

Howard Braxton, mayor of Topsail Beach, also recalled a minor oil spill from a grounded boat off Topsail Island about three years ago that blighted the beach.

“We were cleaning it for a week,” he said. “And he didn’t lose that much.”

Braxton said the incident reminded him of a conversation he had had about two years earlier with some folks from Texas, where oil wells are prolific.

“The only thing they said is, ‘Don’t let it happen to North Carolina,’” he recounted.

Plymouth Mayor Brian Roth said that as a retired military officer, he had seen many beaches around the world with “blobs” of oil washing up every day.

“It’s not necessarily just about today – it could be 20 years from now,” he said. “You can’t put that genie back in the bottle.”

In the tiny town of Duck, where the year-round population of 5,000 swells to about 22,000 beachgoers per week in the summer, Mayor Don Kingston said the town has already generated five resolutions against seismic testing and oil drilling since 2006.

“I think we could withstand a hurricane better than an oil spill,” he said.

Other mayors around the table included J. Andrew Syre, Bald Head Island; Ricky Credle, Belhaven; Bettie J. Parker, Elizabeth City; Horace C. Reid Jr., Hertford; Bobby Owens, Manteo; and Tom Bennett, Southern Shores. Steve Murphey, director of the Division of Marine Fisheries and Renee Cahoon, chair of the Coastal Resources Commission, also participated.

Parker, of Elizabeth City and who had previously served on the Pasquotank County Board of Commissioners, said she was instrumental in bringing the Amazon Wind Farm to the county, as well as solar farms.

“I think it’s very important that we focus on clean and renewable energy,” she said.

Pasquotank’s wind farm, which also straddles neighboring Perquimans County, is the first large wind energy operation in the state and the largest taxpayer in both counties.

A bill that is currently being considered in the North Carolina General Assembly would put most of the coast and much of the rest of the state off-limits to wind farms. The bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, contends that the legislation is necessary to protect military operations, but the military is not opposed to wind energy and did not request the bill.

Parker read a letter from Elizabeth City manager Rick Olson emphasizing that oil spills affect more than ocean beaches. A spill would disperse throughout the state’s huge estuarine system, including the Pasquotank River.

“It would turn our beautiful waterfront into a cesspool,” Olson writes in the letter.

While updating the mayors on regulatory matters, Braxton Davis, director of the state Division of Coastal Management, said that the state has the right under the Coastal Zone Management Act to review and weigh in on a drilling plan, but its power is limited when it comes to stopping the federal government from offering lease blocks for auction.

Seismic survey projects, a separate but related process that would scan the ocean floor for signs of oil and gas deposits below, are currently on hold, he said. Applications from five companies have been submitted. Of them, one is going through a federal consistency review and four were found to be consistent with state laws.

Seasoned Fighters

Of the state’s coastal counties, Dare and Hyde are the seasoned veterans of battles against offshore drilling. Back in the late 1980s, Mobil Oil Corp. targeted a huge deposit of oil and gas about 45 miles off Cape Hatteras. Although the area, known as The Point, has never been surveyed, oil experts at the time estimated that the reefs could contain as much as 6 trillion cubic feet of oil or natural gas. At about 1.5 billion barrels of oil, the deposit is believed to be one of the largest off the East Coast.

But scientists say The Point, located at the confluence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current, is an ecosystem wilderness with some of the most abundant numbers of marine and bird life in the world.

By the time Mobil submitted its proposal in 1990 to drill an exploratory well at the site, Outer Banks residents, along with local, state and federal elected officials and environmental nonprofit groups, had already united in full-throated opposition to the plan. A series of legislative maneuvers and lawsuits ensued, and Mobil Oil eventually withdrew its proposal.

In September 1997, Chevron USA notified the state that it was interested in drilling a well in the same area that Mobil Oil was targeting, despite the company’s own estimate that the chance of finding enough hydrocarbons in the frontier area for production was just 2 percent.

Outer Banks opposition quickly regrouped and to the surprise of many, in 1999 Chevron relinquished its leases, saying it would instead focus on interests that offered less risk and more profits.

Then about 10 years later, offshore drilling again became a political goal. In 2008, the moratorium on drilling in the Atlantic was lifted, but no lease sales have happened off North Carolina since the Chevron proposal. Some believe that the oil industry is still interested in The Point.

Owens said that he was “involved deeply” in the Mobil showdown, when he was serving as the chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners.

“It made friends out of enemies and enemies out of friends,” he recalled. “It was a battle. Now I see a big difference. There is a solid block against it. This is a representative group. We’ve got the whole coast of North Carolina sitting here.”

PORT FOURCHON, La. — Changes to give more flexibility to oil and gas companies in meeting safety requirements put in place after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion were announced Thursday at this hub for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the Associated Press reports. The revised rules govern safety standards at offshore wells.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt in a statement said that “the rule eliminates unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining safety and environmental protection offshore.”

The final revised rule leaves 274 out of 342, or around 80%, of the original Well Control Rule provisions, according to a news release from the Department of Interior, with 68 provisions identified as appropriate for revision and 33 provisions added. Per the direction of Executive Order 13795 and Secretary’s Order 3350, the final rule addresses offshore oil and gas drilling, completions, workovers and decommissioning activities.

The rules revision announcement comes as the Trump Administration has been attempting to expand drilling off the U.S. coast, though that effort has been delayed by opposition, including from Democratic and Republican governors and lawmakers, and court challenges including last month’s ruling that restored Obama-era restrictions and stated that Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

BSEE published May 11, 2018, the proposed revisions to the Well Control Rule. A 60-day public comment period was held, which was later extended to 87 days. During the open comment period, BSEE received over 118,000 comments on the proposed rule.

Learn More

• BSEE Well Control Rule 2019
• Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Rule Fact Sheet

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration is holding off on plans for expanded drilling for oil and natural gas off the East Coast.

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Thursday said the department is waiting for decisions on appeals of a court order blocking offshore drilling in the Arctic before proceeding with drilling plans for the Atlantic. A federal judge in Alaska reinstated in March a drilling ban put in place during the Obama administration that the president had rescinded with an executive order.

The Southern Environmental Law Center said the decision is being met with cautious enthusiasm by those opposed to drilling off the East Coast, including business leaders, conservation groups and hundreds of cities, towns and counties that have officially opposed the president’s drilling plan for the Atlantic.

“I certainly hope that ‘indefinitely delayed’ is Washington-speak for ‘never.’ Whatever the reason for this delay, more than 230 communities have spoken out against seismic testing and offshore drilling in the Atlantic, and those hundreds of thousands of coastal residents and businesses welcome any development that makes risking their coast less likely,” said SELC Senior Attorney Sierra Weaver in a statement.

SELC’s Nat Mund, director of federal affairs, said Bernhardt may be aligned with the oil industry, but he also recognizes the political reality of an unpopular proposal. “We can only hope this move represents a return to rationality and a genuine listening to the bipartisan voices that have asked the administration to stop this.”

The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce said the move is also good news for opponents of seismic testing in the Atlantic, because “Exploration and drilling plans should go hand-in-hand.”

Chamber President and CEO Frank Knapp Jr. said that if the new five-year drilling plan is delayed, so should any permits for seismic exploration. “A discombobulated drilling plan might not include any areas planned for exploration. We shouldn’t be using destructive exploration techniques in areas that will possibly not be offered for drilling,” he said.

MANTEO – The state Coastal Resources Commission voiced its opposition Thursday to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling, the state Department of Environmental Quality announced.

The CRC  passed during the recent meeting by a unanimous vote the resolution, “North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission Resolution to Protect the North Carolina Coast from Harm Caused by Offshore Energy Exploration and Production.”

The 13-member CRC, which met April 17-18 in the Dare County Government Complex, establishes policies for the state Coastal Management Program, adopts rules for both the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, and the North Carolina Dredge and Fill Act and adopts policies on coastal issues.

CRC Chair Renee Cahoon explained that Gov. Roy Cooper and most coastal cities and towns in North Carolina as well as Florida and South Carolina have come out against offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling, according to the release.

“The time is right to take a stand, and I think we need to be united in North Carolina at this time,” Cahoon said in a statement. “We need to be leaders in this too.”

The resolution states, “the inherent risks to the region from offshore oil and natural gas exploration and drilling have the potential to irrevocably harm our natural environment, our economic wellbeing and our overall quality of life” and cites the ramifications from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

The resolution also refers to numerous scientific studies that raise concerns about adverse impacts of seismic testing on marine mammals and fisheries.

“I applaud the commission and support their commitment to protect our coastal communities from the environmental and economic risks of offshore drilling and seismic testing.  I look forward to working with them on this vitally important issue,” said DEQ Secretary Michael S.  Regan, who addressed the CRC on the issue during the meeting.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new report released Thursday by Oceana, a nonprofit ocean advocacy group, finds that offshore drilling “remains dirty and dangerous nine years after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history,” according to a release from the organization.

The report also evaluates the Trump Administration’s proposal to expand offshore drilling to nearly all U.S. waters while chipping away at the few offshore safety regulations put in place following the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“Less safety and more drilling is a recipe for disaster,” said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana, in a statement.

“President Trump must drastically reverse course in order to prevent another BP Deepwater Horizon-like disaster. We should not be expanding dirty and dangerous offshore drilling to new areas when there’s overwhelming bipartisan opposition,” she continued. “We should be strengthening safety, not further weakening the few safety measures currently in place. Coastal communities and our environment cannot afford another environmental catastrophe, which is where we are headed under President Trump’s proposals. It’s time for President Trump to stand with coastal communities, not the oil and gas industry.”

The report came to several conclusions, including that between 2007 and 2017, there were at least 6,500 oil spills in U.S. waters, “and a recent study found that spills are typically far larger than what is reported,” according to the release. “Oil spills cannot be cleaned up effectively, with methods that have largely remained unchanged since the late 1980s.”

The findings also pointed to the cost of civil penalties not being a deterrent. Penalties for violating offshore operating requirements are capped at $44,675 per day, per violation while operating costs for offshore drilling facilities can be up to $1 million per day. The penalty for “violating offshore operating requirements are grossly inadequate and fail to deter corner-cutting,” according to the release.

“The facts are startling and the time for action is now – the stakes are too high,” said Hoskins. “We cannot gamble with the health and safety of our oceans and coasts.”

The organization recommends President Trump direct his administration to halt all efforts to expand offshore drilling activities and abandon attempts to weaken safety regulations and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement should improve the industry safety.

Oceana also suggests that Congress increase financial penalties for safety violations to deter non-compliant behavior and risk-tasking as well as require accurate oil spill reporting, establish industry-specific penalties for under reporting, increase federal resources and research new clean-up technologies, according to the release.

Learn More

• Full Report

The group, Crabby About Off Shore Drilling, announced that it will screen “Shore Stories,” six short documentary films that highlight the grassroots resistance to offshore drilling in the U.S., at 6:45 p.m. April 11 at the Oak Island Recreation Center, SE 30^th St. and East Oak Island Drive in Oak Island.

The six films were curated by Working Films, which produces documentaries intended to advance social justice and environmental protection, and partner organizations including Oceana, Environment North Carolina, Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club.

Learn More

• Watch the trailer for “Shore Stories.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has requested additional information on the recent decision to open the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf for review under a new oil and gas leasing program.

The senator sent a letter Thursday with the request to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and the assistant secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere at the Department of Commerce, his office announced Thursday.

Tillis points to the economic importance of tourism and fishing industries for the state in the letter and requested that the administration provide more information about the plan to ensure there are adequate protections for North Carolina’s coastal communities.

“While I understand that there are potential economic benefits coming from offshore energy production, I would like to hear more details about specific actions your agencies are taking to safeguard longstanding industries in our coastal communities,” Tillis says in the letter. “I also request that you provide information about how your agencies will guarantee that the issuance of geological and geophysical surveying permits are limited and do not result in duplicative surveying activities.”

In the letter, Tillis invites officials to join him for listening and educations sessions in North Carolina’s coastal communities to engage in productive dialogue.

“Lastly, I would like to invite you to join me in visiting North Carolina for listening and education sessions across our coastal counties on the topic of offshore energy exploration,” Tillis writes. “North Carolina’s coastal communities have been closely monitoring the issue of offshore drilling and surveying. A visit will provide an opportunity for your agencies to directly engage with stakeholders in an open dialogue about the potential costs and benefits of your proposed actions.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  The Trump administration advanced Thursday previously proposed changes to an Obama-era offshore oil production safety rule that petroleum companies had found burdensome.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which was established in response to the Deepwater Horizon-Macondo oil spill in 2010, announced Thursday that the updated Oil and Gas Production Safety Systems regulations would “reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens while ensuring that operations remain safe and environmentally responsible.”

The changes, which result from executive and secretarial orders in 2017, incorporate industry innovation, science and best practices, Scott Angelle, the bureau’s director, said in a statement. The revisions were published for public comment in December 2017.

The Oil and Gas Production Safety Systems Rule, also known as Subpart H, addresses safety and pollution prevention equipment, undersea safety devices and safety device testing for the production of oil and gas resources on the outer continental shelf. The bureau said it analyzed all 484 provisions in the original 2016 Production Safety Systems Rule and determined that 84 of those provisions were appropriate for revision or deletion. The final rule also adds seven new provisions.

In addition to measures that reduce notifications and clarify when operators must provide documentation, the new rule sets as law a dozen updated industry standards.

The rule is to be published Friday in the Federal Register and become effective 90 days later.

The changes will not alter any parts of other rules enacted since the Deepwater Horizon incident, but the bureau has separately proposed changes to the so-called Blowout Preventer Systems and Well Control Rule.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump has revoked an Obama-era executive order on stewardship of the oceans, Great Lakes and coasts signed in response to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and issued a new order encouraging more drilling for oil and natural gas and other industrial activity off U.S. shores.

Trump issued his “Executive Order Regarding the Ocean Policy to Advance the Economic, Security, and Environmental Interests of the United States” Tuesday. The White House said the order rolls back “excessive bureaucracy created by the previous Administration” in 2010 and calls for creation of an interagency committee to streamline federal coordination of ocean policy.

The Ocean Policy Committee is to be co-chaired by the Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Science and Technology Policy and focus on growing the ocean economy, prioritizing scientific research, coordinating resources and data sharing, and engaging with stakeholders. It also eliminates regional planning bodies established by the previous administration.

Unlike the Obama order, which included points addressing climate change and ocean acidification, the new order includes no mention of climate change.

The White House said the order reduces “regulatory uncertainty” for ocean industries.

“The ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes waters of the United States are foundational to the economy, security, global competitiveness, and well-being of the United States. Ocean industries employ millions of Americans and support a strong national economy. Domestic energy production from Federal waters strengthens the Nation’s security and reduces reliance on imported energy,” the order states.

The National Resources Defense Council called the move irresponsible, saying that ocean management had improved under the Obama policy.

“Yet today, President Trump revoked the 2010 National Ocean Policy and issued a new Executive Order that no longer requires federal members to continue planning together with states and tribes for the future. There is no longer a requirement to work with states to provide for coordinated ocean protection and there is no longer a national policy to promote healthy ocean ecosystems,” NRDC’s Senior Policy Analyst Alison Chase writes.

Pete Stauffer, environmental director with the Surfrider Foundation, also issued a statement, saying the ocean advocacy group was dismayed by the repeal of the National Ocean Policy.

“Repealing the policy is a blow to sensible and effective management, and is yet another attack on our ocean and coastlines,” said Stauffer.

WASHINGTON — A new coalition in support of offshore energy exploration and development was launched Wednesday by a national oil and natural gas industry trade association.

Explore Offshore, a project of the American Petroleum Institute, or API, held a press conference to introduce the organization that is made up of several dozen businesses and community leaders in the southeastern United States.

During the phone conference, Explore Offshore’s national co-chairs, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson and former Secretary of the Navy and former Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., along with a diverse group of chairs and co-chairs representing Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, addressed members of the press.

API’s Erik Milito, director of Upstream and Industry Operations, explained that the Department of the Interior is in the process of taking a critical step that will affect American energy production, job creation and energy security as it develops the 2019-2024 national offshore leasing program. He explained that the Explore Offshore coalition brings together more than 100 business and community leaders to show their support for expanded offshore oil natural gas development.

Nicholson said during his remarks that the members of the Explore Offshore coalition want reliable and affordable prices at the pump and a more assured energy, economic and national security for the future, which can be made possible through U.S. offshore development.

He cited a recent report by Calash, an energy consulting firm, that reported oil and natural gas development in the Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico over an 18-year period could support 425,000 jobs across the country and add $36 billion to the economy per year.

Webb said that oil and gas are the key drivers of the world economies and that “we remain vulnerable in an expanding global economy marked by ever-growing energy needs.

“I’ve long believed that developing off shore oil and natural gas reserves is a much-needed, common sense step for America’s future,” he said.

Webb added that national policies have failed to adjust to the significant advances in exploration, drilling technology and safety measures that would allow research to be conducted as well as safely explore and develop all existing domestic oil and natural gas resources including those offshore.

Among the state representatives to speak was former Fayetteville, North Carolina, mayor Nat Robertson.

Robertson said that he understands firsthand the importance of natural gas and oil production to the economy and how that relates to affordable utility bills and lower prices at the pump.

“Right now North Carolina has a great opportunity with Secretary Zinke’s plan to open up the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf to oil and natural gas exploration,” Robertson said.

Regarding the North Carolina coast, Maliko said that the industry and government go through an environmental review process to make sure there is an understanding of offshore areas such as the Graveyard of the Atlantic off North Carolina’s coast.

Frank Knapp Jr., president and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement in response to the American Petroleum Industry’s launch of Explore Offshore, that “the petroleum industry knows that it is in serious jeopardy of not getting the permits it wants to conduct seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic to search for oil and gas deposits.

“It knows that the public, businesses, local coastal governments and state government leaders overwhelmingly oppose exploration and drilling for oil in the Atlantic,” Knapp continued. “So Big Oil is creating this fake coalition made up primarily of former elected officials who have no responsibility to represent the public and businesses that will be harmed.”

KITTY HAWK – Whether or not Gov. Roy Cooper had leapt at the opportunity to get away from Raleigh last week, it was clear that North Carolina’s 75^th governor was happy to have accepted an invitation to give the keynote speech at the recent Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce 2018 Economic Summit.

“What an amazing sunrise this morning,” Cooper exclaimed in his opening remarks held April 12 at the Hilton Garden Inn on the oceanfront. “You guys are so lucky.”

Environmental protection was part of the governor’s focus on the economic importance of the state’s 300-mile coastline and the 30,000 jobs supported by its nearly $3 billion tourism industry.

Cooper said that starting with visits during his childhood, and throughout his years as a state senator and attorney general, he has seen firsthand the tremendous growth in the state’s northernmost barrier islands.

“We all know the Outer Banks has its challenges,” he said, citing continuing threats from beach erosion, shoaling of waterways and damage from powerful storms.

“Now we have another threat and challenge – the threat of offshore drilling,” he said. “I tell you this – not off our coast you don’t!”

The risk of an oil spill destroying the coastal environment – and its economy – makes no sense, he said, when there are other options such as renewable energy.

Cooper again reiterated his promise to take the federal government to court if it pursues an oil and gas lease program off North Carolina.

The governor also supported diverse educational and training opportunities for the workforce, better pay for teachers, expansion of Medicaid and more help to treat and prevent opioid addiction.

Ultimately, Cooper said, in order to attract visitors and good businesses, and at the same time provide jobs in all corners of the state, North Carolina has to restore its reputation as a state that is tolerant, innovative and has a well-educated workforce.

“We want to bring people to North Carolina and bring their money with them,” he said.

In a brief Q&A with reporters following his remarks, Cooper said that after meeting with U.S. Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke, he had reason to be hopeful that the state will not be included in the pending federal offshore oil and gas leasing plan.

“I’m optimistic because the feeling in Washington was that offshore drilling was a done deal,” he said. “I don’t think that Washington anticipated the blowback they got up and down the East Coast. I think our arguments are winning. If they exempt Florida, they certainly have to exempt us.”

Cooper also reaffirmed the state’s support for wind and solar energy production. Despite an 18-month moratorium that was included in a recently enacted state statute, Cooper said the bill does not stop his administration from accepting applications for wind projects.

Meanwhile, construction of solar projects is booming.

“North Carolina is No. 2 in the country in solar energy,” the governor told reporters, “and I believe it is one of our No. 1 economic assets.”

MANTEO — The Dare Board of Commissioners provided time last week for offshore drilling advocates to speak but ultimately stuck to their position that the risks were unacceptable, the Outer Banks Sentinel reported.

Vice Chairman Wally Overman said during the meeting April 3, “I can’t imagine a worse place to be drilling.”

The meeting included a presentation by an anti-wind-power activist who claimed seismic surveys have resulted in no consequential environmental problems, that an oil spill would be extremely unlikely and that wind turbines produce more damage and greater risk to coastal tourism.

BRUNSWICK COUNTY — Commissioners here during their meeting Monday voted 4-1 to remove from the agenda a resolution against offshore drilling, the StarNews reported.

With the resolution taken off the table, the board did not vote in support of or against the resolution.

Chairman Frank Williams and Commissioners Mike Forte, Pat Sykes and Marty Cooke all voted to remove the resolution from the agenda while Commissioner Randy Thompson voted against removing the resolution.

The commissioner’s chambers were full of residents that supported the resolution against offshore drilling and those both against and in favor of offshore drilling spoke during the public comment period.

Holden Beach resident Dwight Willis, who is also with the Brunswick Environmental Action Team, brought resolutions against offshore drilling passed by 13 of Brunswick County’s 19 municipalities to Monday night’s meeting and implored commissioners to follow in the footsteps of the municipalities who have passed resolutions.

Pete Key with Brunswick Environmental Action Team, or BEAT, told Coastal Review Online that they are very disappointed that Brunswick County Commissioners steadfastly refuse to listen to the people they represent.

“Despite over 250 citizens from Brunswick County attending the meeting in favor of a resolution against offshore drilling and seismic testing, Chairman Frank Williams, Commissioners Marty Cooke and Pat Sykes continue to put their party politics before the people. While we weren’t by any means blindsided by their decision, we were hopeful that a large show of constituents in favor would show them how important this issue is to the people of Brunswick County,” he continued. “Brunswick Environmental Action Team has not, and will not, give up on this issue. It is a critical battle that needs to be won if we are to keep our beaches and coastal environments pristine and safe for future generations. Politicians will change but our resolve is firm. Not off our coast.”

Learn More

• Full story in the StarNews
• Brunswick County Commissioners March 19 Agenda

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

KILL DEVIL HILLS — Around two dozen Dare and Currituck leaders met Tuesday with North Carolina Secretary of Environmental Quality Michael Regan to discuss battling the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up exploration for offshore oil and natural gas.

“Gov. Cooper and I are not going to sit quietly in Raleigh. We’re going to try to leverage these opportunities with people who work, play and live in this precious area to get their voices activated,” Regan said after the gathering at Rooster’s Southern Kitchen.

“We cannot be successful sitting on the sidelines, and the governor and I don’t plan to do that. We plan to make the case that our precious resources don’t need to be put in harm’s way for an effort the state will not benefit from,” Regan said.

The meeting, which was organized by the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, was the first of multiple stops in coastal counties by Regan on Tuesday. He was scheduled to make an appearance with Hyde County officials in Swan Quarter in the afternoon.

The gatherings come ahead of a Department of Interior forum to be held Monday in Raleigh, which is currently the only session set for North Carolina.

Earlier this month, Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard, Nags Head Mayor Pro Tem Susie Walters, Chairperson of the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission and Nags Head Commissioner Renee Cahoon joined Regan, Cooper and others from along the coast at a meeting with U.S. Interior Secretary . Ryan Zinke at the Executive Mansion in Raleigh.

The group stressed that offshore drilling would put North Carolina’s $3 billion coastal economy, 22 barrier islands and millions of acres of estuaries at risk.

“I thought we were winning the day with our argument with science and the economics and the environmental aspects and I was optimistic leaving that meeting, but we are left with only one public hearing in Raleigh,” Regan said. “I don’t think that’s adequate.”

Also at Tuesday’s discussion were mayors Ben Cahoon of Nags Head, Bobby Owens Jr. of Manteo and Shelia Davies of Kill Devil Hills, Dare commissioners Woodard, Wally Overman, Danny Couch and Rob Ross, Currituck Commissioner Mike Payment, and representatives from various other local civic, business and environmental groups.

“One of the chief carrots that’s being dangled in front of North Carolina is the financial benefits,” Couch told Regan. “I’m seeing deep water port Norfolk, deep water port Charleston. Tell us how we can grasp whether or not there will be any economic benefit.”

“Absent some guarantee up front from the federal government, we probably have to sue just as hard for royalties as we are having to sue to fight (against drilling),” Regan said.

The discussion also centered on reiterating to Washington the economic impact that drilling could have if there is an accident similar to the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

“We have to drive home that this will be hopefully the third year in a row that we have $1 billion in tourism on the Outer Banks,” said Woodard. “If we have one oil spill, it goes away.”

“What are the Tess Judges’ of the world going to do with her hotels? What are the 300 restaurants from Hatteras to Duck going to do, who are they going feed? 35,000 people are going to support 300 restaurants? I don’t think so,” Woodard said.

A lack of statewide, bipartisan unity in North Carolina in opposition to drilling was also brought up at the meeting with the governor and Zinke on Feb. 5.

Zinke said a united front in opposition was the reason why Florida was being exempted from the discussion.

Renee Cahoon said Brunswick County commissioners voted to stay neutral in the matter, while Currituck is still considering whether to pass a resolution, according to Payment.

“They are a big part of the tourism picture. You need to talk to your counterparts and be part of a united North Carolina,” Cahoon said.

Both U.S. senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, and Reps. George Holding of Raleigh, David Rouzer of Johnston County, Ted Budd of Davie County, Robert Pittenger of Charlotte, Richard Hudson of Concord and Mark Walker of Greensboro have been open about allowing North Carolina to be included in oil and gas exploration.

Woodard said that the state House and Senate leadership, and local General Assembly members Sen. Bill Cook and Rep. Beverly Boswell, have also shown their support for drilling.

At least 30 coastal communities have passed resolutions opposing drilling, joining hundreds of businesses and a bipartisan group of North Carolina’s Congressional delegation.

Gov. Cooper sent a letter on Jan. 20 requesting not only the additional meetings, but the same exemption that Zinke had granted to Florida.

Dare County and nearly all the municipalities have passed or are considering resolutions asking for additional input opportunities and an exemption for the cost.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Join the Crystal Coast Waterkeeper in Jacksonville and Morehead City for “Shore Stories,” six short films that highlight the nation’s growing grass-roots resistance to offshore drilling.

“Shore Stories” will be presented Wednesday, Feb. 21 at Onslow County Public Library, 58 Doris Ave E, Jacksonville, and Tuesday, Feb. 27 in Carteret County Community College’s Joslyn Hall, 3505 Arendell St. Morehead City.

The six short films not only highlight the grassroots resistance taking place across the US, but also stories from past oil and gas exploration, including the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The voices behind these stories represent a broad range of people who love the coast and stand together in opposition to drilling, including surfers, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists, business owners, and coastal residents.

After the films, there will be a discussion of the proposal, how to submit comments, and how to become involved in resisting these plans.

In January 2018, the current administration proposed a new offshore drilling plan that would open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore drilling, including the coast of North Carolina.

In response, Working Films teamed up with Oceana, the Surfrider Foundation, and local and statewide organizations in coastal communities across the United States to tour Shore Stories, six short films that expose the devastation of past oil and gas exploration and highlight grassroots resistance to offshore drilling.

Hosting the showings is the Crystal Coast Waterkeeper, advocacy organization with the purpose of protecting and enhancing the waters of Bogue Sound, Back Sound, Core Sound and offshore Atlantic Ocean.

Learn More

• Shore Stories
• Crystal Coast Waterkeeper

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., announced Thursday that he has asked the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, to hold a public meeting in Dare County regarding the federal government’s proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2019-2024.

His request to BOEM is on the heels of a similar request made Wednesday by Dare County Board of Commissioners.

As of now, there is only one public meeting on the proposed five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program scheduled in the entire state, to be held in Raleigh, roughly 150 miles from Dare County.

Jones wrote in a letter to BOEM that the oil and gas leasing program has “generated considerable interest in coastal areas across the country, including in my Eastern North Carolina district.”

He continued in his letter that he is pleased there is a meeting to be held in the state but the date and location “represent a hardship for citizens who live along the coast of North Carolina, including those in Dare County. For many of these folks, a drive to Raleigh on a weeknight is a 3 or 4 hour trip each way. As a result, I fear many will not be able to attend.”

Jones concluded, “It is vitally important for the federal government to receive the input of citizens who stand to be most impacted by this proposal. Therefore, I respectfully encourage you to grant the county’s request for a public meeting in Dare County.”

The Department of the Interior released Jan. 4 its proposed five-year draft plan to open up most U.S. outer continental-shelf waters, including off the North Carolina coast and some protected areas, to oil and gas exploration and drilling. As part of that announcement,  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said there would be a series of 23 public meetings  on the draft plan, including the one in North Carolina set for 3-7 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown, 3415 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh.

Learn More

• Letters from Jones & Dare County Commissioners to BOEM

BRUNSWICK COUNTY — In a 3-2 vote Tuesday, Commissioners here rescinded the board’s 2015 pro-drilling resolution for offshore drilling and seismic testing, the Wilmington StarNews reported.

This vote only rescinds support of the resolution supporting offshore drilling and seismic testing. The Brunswick board will now review information over a 30-day period before possibly voting on another offshore drilling resolution.

More than 30 local governments on the state’s coast have passed resolutions in opposition of offshore drilling and seismic testing with Carteret County now being the only governmental body on coastal North Carolina that supports offshore oil and gas exploration.

During the meeting held in the David R. Sandifer Administration Building, board chair Frank Williams and commissioners Mike Forte and Randy Thompson, who made the motion, all voted to rescind the resolution while Marty Cooke and Pat Sykes voted to remain in support.

Williams, who initially recused himself at the original 2015 vote and during an effort to rescind the resolution last summer, said he would write to the federal government asking for a public hearing in Brunswick County on the five-year plan. The only hearing scheduled in the state is in Raleigh.

Before the commissioners meeting, the Brunswick Environmental Action Team, or BEAT, held a rally outside of the meeting building to urge commissioners to pass a resolution opposing offshore drilling and seismic testing. About 200 members of BEAT, members from Oceana North Carolina, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and revitalizing the world’s oceans, and citizens, then attended the meeting to oppose offshore drilling and seismic testing.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality have expressed strong opposition to offshore exploration. Cooper has been especially active in fighting against offshore drilling since Jan. 4 when the draft plan was released that would open the North Carolina coast to drilling and seismic testing between 2019 and 2024.

Learn More

• Read the StarNews report

RALEIGH – Gov. Roy Cooper urged U.S Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke Friday to grant North Carolina an exemption from the Department of Interior’s five-year plan for offshore drilling in the Atlantic, the governor’s office announced.

The call came after the Department of the Interior announced earlier in the week that Florida’s coast will no longer be considered for oil and gas drilling in the Trump administration’s plan announced Jan. 4 that would open nearly all U.S. coastal waters to drilling as part of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2019-2024.

During the call, Zinke agreed to visit and speak to local leaders here and North Carolina’s congressional delegation.

“Offshore drilling poses too many risks for North Carolina and our coastal economy. I look forward to the Secretary coming to visit our coast to learn firsthand the importance of tourism and commercial fishing and the damage an oil spill would cause. I will continue to urge Secretary Zinke to grant North Carolina an exemption to drilling similar to the one for Florida,” Cooper said in a statement.

Cooper’s office said the governor emphasized North Carolina’s opposition to offshore drilling, inquired about the decision to exempt Florida and explored options to exempt North Carolina as well.

Cooper, according to the announcement, described North Carolina’s $3 billion coastal tourism economy, 22 barrier islands and millions of acres of estuaries that this plan would put at risk if it were put into practice. Cooper also explained North Carolina’s history of hurricanes and how the coastal storms could affect drilling.

Zinke expressed his understanding of opposition to the plan, and said that the Department of Interior would continue receiving input from Cooper and collecting feedback from various stakeholders in the process.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. –  After Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who strongly opposed the move to drill for oil and gas off the state’s coast, met with United States Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced that Florida’s coast will no longer be considered for oil and gas drilling.

Zinke announced Jan. 4 that nearly all United States coastal waters would be opened up to allow new offshore oil and gas drilling as part of the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2019-2024, compared to the current program where 94 percent of the waters are off limits. The proposed program includes 47 potential lease sales off the coast of Alaska, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic.

According to a press release Tuesday from the Florida governor’s office, Scott requested to meet with Zinke to discuss his concerns with the federal oil drilling plan, which resulted in Zinke pulling Florida from consideration after their meeting.

Scott said that by removing Florida, “We can now focus on how we can further protect our environment, including our proposal for record funding for the Everglades, our springs, our beaches and our state parks. I will never stop fighting for Florida’s environment and our pristine coastline.”

Zinke said in the statement that President Trump directed him to rebuild the offshore oil and gas program “in a manner that supports our national energy policy and also takes into consideration the local and state voice.”

“I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique and its coast is heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver,” Zinke continued. “As a result of today’s discussion and Governor Scott’s leadership, I am removing Florida from consideration for any new oil and gas platforms.”

This move by Zinke has garnered backlash by organizations and businesses.

Frank Knapp Jr., president and CEO of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast, or BAPAC, has more than 41,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families supporting its mission of opposing oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Atlantic.

“Zinke is quoted upon announcing that he was removing Florida waters from being included in a five-year oil leasing plan that he was doing so because he supports Governor Scott’s ‘position that Florida is unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.’” Knappe said in a statement.

He wants to invite Zinke to visit the coastal states along the Atlantic with their governors to see that each coastal area is “unique and generates tourism, commercial fishing and recreation dollars that drive their local and state economies. Every one of these states deserves Mr. Zinke reaching the same conclusion to continue the ban on offshore drilling on their outer continental shelf.”

Knapp added, “While the other Atlantic Coast states don’t have a Mar-A-Lago to protect and some don’t have Republican Governor’s to plead their case, they do have thousands of businesses that depend on a healthy ocean for their success. Offshore drilling for oil is just as incompatible with the local economies of the rest of the Atlantic Coast states as it is with Florida’s economy.”

The Southern Environmental Law Center, or SELC, has also released a statement after Zinke announced he planned to remove Florida from the administration’s draft five-year offshore drilling plan.

“Two days in, the Trump Administration has shown us exactly what their offshore drilling proposal is all about and it has nothing to do with listening to local and state voices, economics, or science. This is about playing politics with our coast,” said SELC Senior Attorney Sierra Weaver. “If it was anything but that, Secretary Zinke would have announced tonight that he was removing Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, where offshore drilling has already been rejected by local and state voices. The fact is that an oil spill doesn’t know or care where one state ends, and another begins – and Florida remains at risk, just like all states in the Mid- and South Atlantic. The Administration should end its crusade for Big Oil and actually listen to voices on the ground that made it crystal clear they do not want drilling off their coasts.”

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted Wednesday that offshore drilling “would bring unacceptable risks to our economy, our environment, and our coastal communities,” and he urged the public to call the Interior Department to speak out against the plan.

Make your voice heard. Call @Interior at (202) 208-3100 to speak up against offshore drilling on North Carolina’s coast.

— Governor Roy Cooper (@NC_Governor) January 10, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite strong opposition from East Coast governors, several dozen lawmakers and the Defense Department, the Department of the Interior Thursday released its proposed five-year draft plan to open up most U.S. outer continental-shelf waters, including off the North Carolina coast and some protected areas, to oil and gas exploration and drilling.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced that the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management had identified 47 possible areas where industry companies can buy leases in the draft National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, or National OCS Program, for 2019-2024.

While oil and gas industry groups embraced the new five-year plan, a wide range of state officials and conservationists were quick to come out in opposition.

“Offshore drilling represents a critical threat to our coastal economy. Protecting North Carolina families and businesses is my top priority, and we will pursue every option to prevent oil drilling near North Carolina’s beaches, coastal communities, and fishing waters,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement.

Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Michael Regan also released a statement on the plan. “Offshore drilling and the seismic testing that would precede it pose environmental and economic risks to North Carolina’s coastal communities that we cannot afford,” Regan said Thursday. “Protection of our beaches, sounds and marine life is vital to ensuring a robust coastal economy.”

The group Oceana said the administration’s proposal would put large multi-national corporations ahead of coastal residents and healthy ocean-dependent economies. “This plan opens the floodgates to dirty and dangerous offshore drilling, threatening coastal economies that rely on clean and healthy oceans,” Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said in a statement.

Zinke said in the announcement that 155 members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate sent letters to the secretary in support of a new five-year plan “that recognizes America’s potential for energy dominance.”

Zinke said during a news conference that there is nothing final with the draft program and that states, communities and congressional delegations will be able to provide input before the proposal is finalized in the coming months.

A series of 23 “open house” public meetings have been scheduled on the draft plan, including one set for 3-7 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown, 3415 Wake Forest Road, Raleigh.

Learn More

• Draft 2019-2024 National OCS Oil and Gas Leasing Program

RALEIGH – A majority of North Carolina residents are concerned about the federal government’s plan to begin drilling for oil and natural gas off the state’s coast and the risks it poses to the environment and the economy, according to a new poll.

Public Policy Polling conducted the survey July 21-23, in the days following Gov. Roy Cooper’s announcement June 20 of his plan to oppose offshore drilling expansion along the Atlantic coast. PPP conducted the survey on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and released the results Thursday.

“This sends a strong message to Washington. The people of North Carolina overwhelmingly oppose offshore drilling,” said Franz Matzner, deputy director of federal campaigns, Natural Resources Defense Council. “They’re worried about losing jobs, tourism income, and losing value in their homes. They’re also concerned about the environment. For every resident who’s willing to make the bad gamble with offshore drilling, there are two more residents who prefer investing in clean energy and energy efficiency.”

According to the results, seven out of 10 North Carolinians are either “very concerned,” 51 percent, or somewhat concerned,” 19 percent, about offshore drilling off the coast of North Carolina.

Also, 56 percent of residents surveyed are “very concerned” and another 16 percent are “somewhat concerned” about the risk of an oil spill.

More than three-quarters of those surveyed, or 77 percent, said the tourism-related economic downturn from an oil spill on North Carolina beaches would be harmful, including 58 percent who say it would be “very harmful.”

A clear majority, 64 percent, said they were concerned that an oil spill in North Carolina coastal waters would threaten either their job or that of a loved one or reduce the value of their home.

More than one out of five North Carolina respondents, or 21 percent, said they work in or near the coastal area of North Carolina. These individuals are considerably more likely, 48 versus 36 percent, than those living elsewhere in the state to be “very concerned” about the danger offshore drilling poses to jobs and housing prices.

Nearly one in five North Carolinians, or 19 percent, say their job or place of business depends on the ocean or beach tourism economy. They are considerably more likely, 51 percent versus 36 percent, than those feeling no such connection to the ocean or beach tourism economy to be “very concerned” about the danger offshore drilling poses to jobs and housing prices.

“The voice of North Carolina residents comes through loud and clear in these findings and with a remarkable degree of unanimity,” said Jim Williams, Research Director for PPP. “Anyone who is going to consider getting behind offshore drilling in the waters off this state needs to take heed of these findings in order to understand just how far out of step they are with the public.”

Learn More

• Read the executive summary and survey results

ATLANTIC BEACH – Flanked Thursday by mayors of a half-dozen eastern North Carolina communities, Gov. Roy Cooper cited the threat to the “robust coastal economy” from proposed offshore drilling and seismic exploration for oil and natural gas off the state’s coast and pledged to lead the renewed fight against it.

During an appearance at Fort Macon State Park, Cooper framed his opposition in terms of protecting the state’s coastal environment and economy that it supports from the “unacceptable risks” offshore drilling and exploration could bring, risks that the governor said would outweigh any benefits to the state.

“I can sum it up in four words: not off our coast,” Cooper said to enthusiastic applause from those gathered in the education and visitor center, including representatives of various environmental groups, local officials and others opposed to offshore drilling and seismic exploration.

“We have consulted with experts and we’ve examined carefully what we know about this,” Cooper said. “It’s clear that opening North Carolina’s coast to oil and gas exploration and drilling would bring unacceptable risks to our economy, our environment and our coastal communities and for little potential gain for our state.”

President Trump signed an executive order in April aimed at removing restrictions on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts put in place during the final months of the Obama administration. In June, the Trump administration opened the public comment period for a new, five-year energy leasing program for the outer continental shelf, a move toward opening East Coast waters to oil and gas exploration and drilling. The program for oil and gas development sets a schedule for proposed oil and gas lease sales off the coast.

Public comments on the proposed program continue to be accepted through Aug. 17. Friday is the deadline for public comments on incidental harassment authorizations during seismic surveys as required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Cooper said Thursday that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality would submit formal comments opposing offshore seismic testing.

Cooper’s announcement marks a complete reversal for the executive branch on state energy policy. His predecessor, Pat McCrory, had championed offshore exploration even suggesting at one point that drilling in state waters, those within 3 miles offshore, would be worth studying.

While highlighting the threat to the coastal economy, including the $3 billion generated annually by coastal tourism, the more than 30,000 jobs it supports and the $95 million commercial fishing industry, Cooper described the risk in personal terms.

“I grew up a few hours east of here in Nash County and, like many other North Carolinians, I have wonderful memories of coming here with my parents and my brother, staying up the road there at the John Yancey Motor Hotel and, because it didn’t have a restaurant, walking over to the Sea Hawk for breakfast that morning,” Cooper said, referring to the former oceanfront lodging in Atlantic Beach that was renamed in 1993 and eventually closed.

The governor said the state park and surrounding area are “steeped in history” with an unspoiled coastline that he and others had long enjoyed.

“This place is part of who I am, as it is for many of you, whether you grew up in this state or the state attracted you to come and live here,” Cooper said. “Here in North Carolina, it’s pretty clear that our coast is part of our identity.”

It was a message similar to the one delivered by Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper in his introduction of the governor. “I’m here to talk to you today not just as mayor but also as a citizen of the coast and as a businessperson. I own and operate businesses in both the hospitality and real estate industries and, along with fishing, those are really the pillars of our economy here on the coast of North Carolina,” the Bogue Banks town’s mayor said. “That clean, natural environment is what attracts literally millions of people to our coast every year.”

The governor said there is no offshore drilling method that’s 100 percent safe and the risks of catastrophic events such as oil spills come with the industry.

“Oil spills bring devastating long-term damage to every place they touch,” Gov. Cooper said.

Cooper noted that the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 cost more than $60 billion in cleanup and economic recovery, an amount equivalent to the state budget for more than two years. The risk comes with little promise of financial benefit to the state. North Carolina is unlikely to get the jobs, revenue sharing or state port business that drilling proponents have touted.

“That’s a bad deal for our state,” Cooper said.

The Interior Department earlier this month announced reduced royalty rates for Gulf Coast states to encourage drilling by oil companies that have been reluctant during a yearslong period low oil prices. Revenue sharing with Atlantic coast states is not allowed by federal law.

The environmental risks to North Carolina are greater, Cooper said, with the current push for deregulation in Washington. “They are slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior. That means fewer safeguards for the environment and ultimately offshore drilling,” Cooper said. “It is simply not worth it.”

Cooper also cited improving renewable technologies and the abundance and lower cost of natural gas in recent years.

“Our state is a national leader in solar energy, an area that has boosted our economic recovery. Natural gas is cheaper and plentiful now. We simply don’t need to take the risk of drilling for oil off of our coast because there are too many reliable energy options,” he said.

The governor acknowledged the more than 30 coastal communities that have passed resolutions opposed to offshore drilling and seismic testing and the more than 200 businesses and community groups that have come out against the proposal. Cooper also noted that a bipartisan mix of the state’s congressional delegation and legislative members had voiced opposition as well.

“I am proud to lead this effort,” Cooper said.

The board of commissioners in Carteret County, which is home to Fort Macon, is one of two coastal North Carolina county boards that passed resolutions in favor of offshore drilling. Brunswick County is the other. The Carteret County Chamber of Commerce, the county’s largest business organization, has since approved a resolution opposed to offshore drilling and seismic testing in the Atlantic.

Tom Kies is president of the Carteret County chamber and vice-chair of the Business Alliance to Protect the Atlantic Coast, or BAPAC, a multi-state business organization opposed to drilling off the Atlantic coast. Kies was pleased the governor came here to make the announcement.

“His aides told me, before he arrived, that BAPAC had been in no small part an influence in the decision-making process,” Kies said. “In the governor’s speech, he specified how important tourism is to this coast and how many jobs it supports. He pointed out the economic risks to both tourism and commercial fishing. This is precisely the story that BAPAC has been telling.”

Conservation groups were also quick to praise the governor’s announcement.

“We want to thank Gov. Cooper for taking a bold and necessary step toward protecting our state’s coastline from the environmental and economic threats posed by offshore drilling. We look forward to working together with his administration and the communities along the North Carolina coast to protect our beaches, wildlife and local economies from harm,” North Carolina Conservation Network Executive Director Brian Buzby said in a statement issued shortly after the governor’s appearance.

Audubon North Carolina also applauded the announcement and cited the economic benefit the state enjoys from birders who visit the coast.

“Migrating birds count on our coast each year to feed and nest, particularly along the Outer Banks,” said Audubon North Carolina Executive Director Heather Hahn. “North Carolina’s birds, beaches and people should not have to live in fear of an oil spill.  The bottom line – birds and oil don’t mix.”

North Carolina Petroleum Council Executive Director David McGowan issued a statement in response to Cooper’s announcement, saying the policy stifles scientific and geological research that’s vital to government, educators and the business community.

“Today’s announcement takes North Carolina in the wrong direction and misses a significant opportunity for our states’ workers, consumers, businesses, and economy,” said McGowan. “The oil and natural gas industry supports over 140,000 jobs in North Carolina, contributes over $12 billion to our state economy, and impacts businesses all across the state. Our state is uniquely positioned to add thousands of additional jobs and increase local revenue through safe and responsible offshore energy development – all of which is disregarded by Governor Cooper’s announcement.”

Learn More

• Submit comments on incidental harassment authorizations
• Submit comments on the proposed five-year energy leasing program

CRO legislative reporter Kirk Ross contributed to this report.

Several organizations are hosting a public meeting in opposition to offshore oil drilling on Tuesday, June 6, at the Northeast Regional Library in Wilmington from 6-7:30 p.m.

Those in attendance will discuss the negative consequences of offshore drilling and seismic blasting with residents and community leaders. The purpose of the meeting is to put into place an action plan to defeat federal attempts to reopen Atlantic waters to offshore drilling.

The meeting comes on the heels of an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to review areas in the Arctic and Atlantic that have been closed to oil and natural gas exploration.

Offshore oil drilling and seismic testing have been linked to oil spills and marine life disturbances. Coastal communities in North Carolina have previously expressed opposition at attempts to lease Atlantic waters to these activities out of fears such moves would impact coastal industries, including tourism.

The hosting organizations include the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Oceana, the Cape Fear Chapter of the N.C. Sierra Club and the Cape Fear Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. Other organizations are expected to be in attendance.

The meeting will be held in the David M. Paynter Assembly Room of the library.

Learn More

• For more information about this meeting or about offshore oil drilling, contact Mike Giles at mikeg@nccoast.org or 910-509-2838
• Read the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s response to the recent executive order

A group of conservation organizations on Tuesday moved to intervene in an appeal by the oil and gas industry that challenges the federal rejection of six Atlantic Ocean offshore exploration permits.

The legal motion was made by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, One Hundred Miles and Defenders of Wildlife.

The permits being challenged by the oil and gas industry were originally rejected by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management because of the “small, critically endangered, and declining population” of North Atlantic right whales.

The environmental advocacy groups said that the remaining population of right whales would be disturbed by seismic activity. Recent surveys have estimated the species’ remaining population to be 476 individual whales.

“Seismic blasts are so loud they can injure endangered right whales and other marine mammals. We’ve been working to save right whales from extinction, and we’re intervening in this appeal to ensure the safety of these rare whales from oil and gas exploration,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

The legal intervention comes on the heels of President Trump issuing an executive order on Friday asking the Department of the Interior to review restrictions on 2017-2022 offshore oil and gas leasing plans. Such reviews could possibly open portions of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans to offshore drilling.

To survey the ocean for offshore oil and gas facilities, high-powered airguns are used for seismic exploration. The sounds they release are among the loudest human sounds in the ocean, and have been linked to disturbances to marine mammals.

The advocacy groups are represented by attorneys from NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Learn More

• Read more about the legal action at the Center for Biological Diversity’s website

This story has been updated.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Trump signed an executive order on Friday aimed at lifting restrictions on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Alaskan coasts put in place during the final months of the Obama administration.

The order, “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” sets a policy of “to encourage energy exploration and production, including on the Outer Continental Shelf,” but does not immediately undo the restrictions Obama put in place.

Trump’s order calls for a review of locations available for oil and gas exploration and certain regulations.

The order directs Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to revise or begin a new five-year plan for oil and gas development that considers areas the Obama administration placed off-limits. It also encourages the Interior Department and the Department of Commerce to work to expedite the seismic surveying permitting process.

The order also directs the commerce secretary to refrain from designating or expanding any national marine sanctuary and to conduct a review of all designations and expansions of national marine sanctuaries and designated marine national monuments made within the past 10 years.

Offshore drilling opponents begin speaking out Thursday, soon after Zinke announced the order.

“The president’s efforts to benefit energy producers won’t make America great again. It will simply enable corner-cutting and set us up for another havoc-wreaking environmental disaster. But this time it could be along the popular Outer Banks or in remote Barrow, Alaska, where there’s no proven way to remove oil from sea ice,” said Oceana’s Senior Vice President for U.S. Oceans, Jacqueline Savitz. “We need smart, tough standards to ensure that energy companies are not operating out of control. In their absence, America’s future promises more oil spills and industrialized coastlines.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation responded Friday, saying the oil industry does not have a clean track record.  “If they drill they will spill,” the federation announced. “The industry wants to drill in one of the most amazing and productive fishing habitats in the world, in very deep water where accidents could have catastrophic effects on our fish and wildlife, beaches, estuaries — and existing coastal communities, businesses and traditions. It’s just not worth the risk.”

American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard welcomed the action. “We are pleased to see this administration prioritizing responsible U.S. energy development and recognizing the benefits it will bring to American consumers and businesses,” the trade association president said in a statement. “Developing our abundant offshore energy resources is a critical part of a robust, forward-looking energy policy that will secure our nation’s energy future and strengthen the U.S. energy renaissance.”

The order comes at a time when industry demand for offshore leases is at its lowest in years.

Learn More

• Read the Executive Order

NAGS HEAD – It’s been six years since the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposed siting wind energy production off Kitty Hawk, and now the agency is preparing to actually offer leases in offshore blocks more than 20 miles from the beach.

An online auction for the lease sites is expected early next year.

Virtually no one at a public information meeting held Wednesday at Jennette’s Pier seemed particularly concerned about the prospect.

“This is a really important pivot in the process here,” said facilitator Bennett Brooks, with the Consensus Building Institute.

Of the 43 people who attended the session, only one person, Manny Medeiros, a frequent critic of wind energy, spoke out in opposition to wind turbines spinning above the ocean off the northern Outer Banks.

Medeiros, a Kitty Hawk resident and real estate agent who is also a vocal climate change skeptic, claimed that European wind operations are losing money and asked why offshore wind energy is being pursued in the U.S.

“Everyone knows that wind energy is the biggest blunder of our time,” he said.

Responding, Jim Bennett, BOEM program manager, said that the U.S. has learned a lot from Europeans’ experience.

“When Congress passed the law, they based it on free-market principles,” he said. “If the determination is that it’s not viable, if there are no developers interested, then the government is not going to go forward with it.”

Shaped like a ragged corner, the proposed 122,405-acre area is located 24 nautical miles from Currituck Beach and about 32 nautical miles from Kitty Hawk. A nautical mile equals about 1.15 standard miles. The wind energy area is the same one that was announced in August 2014, divided into 21.5 blocks, or lease units.

Two additional wind energy areas off Wilmington have since been realigned with BOEM plans for South Carolina wind areas.

The state Division of Coastal Management is currently evaluating whether the Kitty Hawk project is consistent with state coastal regulations.

If a lease is awarded, the developer would be allowed to conduct a site assessment that would determine whether the site would support commercial wind energy development. The assessment would be conducted between 2017 and 2022.

Various maps on placards lined the meeting room overlooking the ocean, depicting numerous conflicts with birds, sea turtles, military interests, vessel traffic and fishing. Chatting with people prior to start of presentations, Brian Krevor, environmental protection specialist in BOEM’s Office of Renewable Energy Programs, pointed to one map showing the distance from the shoreline to the closest wind turbines. The row of narrow towers, which could range from 450 to 600 feet in height, would be virtually invisible, he said, especially in the summer when humidity makes the skies hazy.

“You theoretically could see it from there, but you’re really at the limits of human visual acuity,” he said.

Krevor said that earlier concerns about blighted views and conflicts with vessel travel had been resolved by meeting with stakeholders during the planning process and methodically analyzing options. The current map has been cleared with the Coast Guard and the U.S. Department of Defense, he said.  Initial plans had the blocks starting as close as six miles from the beach, but were later adjusted at the town of Kitty Hawk’s request to place them no closer than 20 miles from shore. And the National Park Service’s concern about the project’s proximity to the Bodie Island Lighthouse resulted in another reduction in size.

The proposed Kitty Hawk area is situated about 20 miles south of a wind energy lease awarded in Virginia.

One person at the meeting questioned the high relative cost of offshore wind, compared with land-based wind and other energy sources.

Will Waskes, BOEM project coordinator, said that as the scale of construction of offshore wind goes up, the price of parts and labor can be expected to decrease.

“Pretty much everybody is working to drive down that cost,” he said.

Ken Jobe, a Beaufort resident with Citizens Climate Lobby, asked about the value and quality of the wind resource off Kitty Hawk.

But that is a question with no easy answer, Waskes said. In general, the industry believes that there is good wind data. Specific measurements of wind speeds that would spin turbines high in the air, he said, are not yet available.

Wind resources would be measured by a contractor after a lease sale is awarded, he said. The developer would tailor the turbine height and type to the resource, and a construction plan would have to be submitted to BOEM for approval.

So far, $16 million in lease sales have been issued by BOEM for 11 commercial offshore Atlantic wind facilities, nine of which were competitive – two each off New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and Rhode Island-Massachusetts; and one off Virginia.

A five-turbine project off Block Island in Rhode Island, which is mostly in state waters, is set to start operating this fall – making it the first U.S. offshore wind facility to produce energy. Sightseeing tours of the project are already being conducted, according to local news reports.

Several BOEM representatives declined to project which offshore wind project will be most likely the next to come online. Lots of factors can come into play, they cautioned, including local support or opposition, legal challenges and regulatory and construction glitches.

Specifics about staging equipment and the location of the sub-surface power cable will also be known only after the construction and operations plan that meets regulatory requirements is submitted, Waskes said in answering another person’s question about infrastructure.

“You’re a little ahead of the game,” he said. “Ultimately, it will be the developer who picks the location.”

The proposed lease sale, announced Aug. 12, would be for a single lease that can only be awarded to one entity. But regulations allow the assignment of all or a portion of the lease to other entities. The online auction is anticipated to be held in January or February 2017, with a lease sale to be awarded to the highest bidder.

The notice also requests that prospective qualified bidders affirm their interest in offshore commercial wind development off Kitty Hawk. It also allows for additional bidders to submit their qualifications before the Oct. 17 deadline. Public comments will be accepted in the same period.

So far, BOEM has qualified five developers to bid on all or portions of the area: Apex Clean Energy, EDF Renewable Energy, Green Sailene, Dominion Power North Carolina and Fishermen’s Energy.

A final sale notice, issued after a review period, will be published to announce the date and time of the lease sale. After leases are issued and the construction plan is approved, BOEM will prepare an environmental analysis. The lessee has up to 25 years to develop a plan.

Bennett said that the Kitty Hawk project fits the United States’ strategic vision for increased wind development, while decreasing dependence on fossil fuels to meet the nation’s energy needs.

“We are hopeful that this will contribute to the administration’s Climate Action Plan,” he said. “Offshore wind is an important component to achieving this goal.”

Submitting Comments

The 60-day public comment period ends Oct. 17 and comments may be submitted by electronically or by mail.

• Submit comments electronically. In the entry entitled, “Enter Keyword or ID,” enter BOEM-2016-0045, then click “search.” Follow the instructions to submit public comments.
• Mail or deliver in an envelope labeled “Comments on North Carolina PSN & RFI” to:
  BOEM Office of Renewable Energy Programs
  45600 Woodland Road, VAM-OREP
  Sterling, VA 20166

To Learn More

• BOEM’s North Carolina renewable energy programs

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today released technical guidance on how to predict the impact of human-made underwater sounds on marine mammals’ hearing, including noise from seismic survey activity.

Seismic surveying generates shock waves that are generated by air or water guns and reflected off the sea floor to measure the qualities of rocks below the Earth’s surface. It’s an essential part of exploration for oil and natural gas.

In addition to helping the federal government and industries accurately understand the effects of their actions, the guidance will also be used by NOAA to authorize activities that create sound underwater.

The guidance provides acoustic thresholds in marine mammal hearing to predict how the animal will respond. It has gone through an internal review, three external peer reviews, three public comment periods and received input from other federal agencies.

Learn More

• NOAA Fisheries web page
• Read the technical guidance

Opponents of drilling off the N.C. coast are celebrating today, after federal officials said yesterday that Atlantic offshore waters are no longer being considered in the five-year plan for oil and natural gas leases.

“Today is an incredible day for the oceans,” said Randy Sturgill, senior campaign organizer for the southeast with the environmental group Oceana, a leader in the opposition movement.

Gov. Pat McCrory, maybe the the state’s biggest offshore drilling cheerleader, charged that President Obama was bowing to left-wing activists by removing the Atlantic from the proposed leasing plan, while oil industry executives said he was acting against the wishes of voters and political leaders.

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, announced the decision. Speaking to reporters in a conference call, Jewell and Hopper said factors considered in the decision included potential conflicts with other ocean uses, including the U.S. Defense Department and commercial interests, market dynamics, limited infrastructure and opposition from many coastal communities.

“In the Atlantic, we heard from many corners that now is not the time to offer oil and gas leasing off the Atlantic coast,” Jewell said. “This includes many local communities whose livelihoods depend on fishing, tourism and shipping activities. When you factor in conflicts with commercial and national defense activities, market conditions and opposition from local communities, it simply doesn’t make sense to move forward with the Atlantic lease sales in the near future. As a result, this one potential lease sale in the mid- and south-Atlantic that was evaluated in the draft proposed program has been removed.”

Jewell said comments from residents of coastal communities were “very significant” factors in the decision.

More than 110 East Coast municipalities have formally opposed to Atlantic offshore drilling, according to Oceana.

Leading the Opposition

The N.C. Coastal Federation was also part of the opposition and organized a public forum on the potential effects of drilling and seismic exploration held in July 2015. Ladd Bayliss, a coastal advocate with the federation, applauded the decision.

“BOEM made it very clear that this bold move to remove Atlantic waters from their drilling plan was a result of meaningful and diverse public opposition,” Bayliss said. “It’s pretty empowering to participate in the public process and actually see the results of such a composite effort in a tangible time frame. Meetings, letters, phone calls, emails, resolutions – they really do make a difference. Like my Dad said about Mobil’s proposal to drill off the Outer Banks in the late ’80s, ‘When we are all blessed with such a resource; one that is long term, it seems unwise to pursue its exploitation for a short-term gain.’ ”

Other environmental groups expressed similar sentiments.

Matt Walker, co-chairman of the Outer Banks chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, said that the overwhelming opposition to Atlantic drilling was a great illustration of coastal residents and officials coming together “to protect their own” – their livelihoods, their environment and their quality of life.

Dare County, he said, was one of the first local governments in the state to oppose the lease sale.

Tourism is a multi-billion-dollar industry in North Carolina, and Dare is one of the top destinations in the state for tourists because of its clean, unspoiled beaches.

“This is a victory for the people of the Outer Banks,” Bob Woodard, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman, said in a prepared statement.  “I am proud that our community took a strong and united stand against offshore drilling.”

Walker said the notoriously dirty business of oil and gas production never made any sense off the Atlantic coast. But with North Carolina’s long coastline, it would be even more vulnerable to crushing environmental and fiscal damages from a spill.

“It was always a false premise that this was a good idea,” he said. “This decision was going to be as bad for Raleigh as it would be for Kill Devil Hills.  I hope people who live inland are also breathing a sigh of relief, because they stand as much to lose.”

Walker said that drilling opponents should now focus their energy on getting the moratorium that was lifted in 2008 put back in place to ensure the battle won’t have to be renewed in five years when Atlantic leases could be offered again.

Sturgill said that opponents couldn’t match the oil lobby funding, so they gathered supporters by “burning up” the Internet and Facebook.

“It’s proof that good ol’ grassroots organizing makes a difference,” Sturgill said.  “We took that, built upon that. We never really changed our strategy.”

Local opposition from residents and community leaders – thousands of letters, petitions, phone calls, public comments – worked its way up the bureaucratic ladder all the way President Obama’s office, Sturgill said.  It was a bipartisan effort, with 110 municipalities on the East Coast passing resolutions opposed to drilling. Only two counties in North Carolina – Carteret and New Hanover – passed measures in support.

Surfrider made anti-drilling lawn signs available for residents to post in their yards, and both Oceana and Surfrider paid for banner planes with anti-drilling messages to fly over areas holding big outdoor events.

“At this particular point, it’s a big thank you for all of the people who had the courage to stand up,” Sturgill said. “We’re all neighbors. We all share the same ocean.”

Process ‘Worked as Intended’

The Defense Department submitted information during the process that the entire proposed Atlantic lease sale area was “conflicted,” Hopper said. She said the scope of military activity in the area had grown since the time of the last evaluation in 2010.

“The way in which it changed is that more of the area actually is conflicted now,” Hopper said.

Jewell said conflicts with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia were also a material factor in the decision, which she said could only be undone if Congress in a future administration reworks the five-year program to add the Atlantic back in. The steps toward yesterday’s decision worked as intended, with “robust” public input and many stakeholders, she said.

“We have certainly heard from coastal communities, generally about their opposition,” Jewell said. “This is not a big reversal. Basically, this is exactly how the process is intended to work.”

The proposed list of leasing areas could narrow further or stay same but it cannot grow, Jewell said. The new proposed five-year lease plan announced yesterday evaluates 13 potential lease sales in six planning areas – 10 potential sales in the Gulf of Mexico and three potential sales off the coast of Alaska.

Hopper said the Interior Department’s request for the military assessment was recently fulfilled and taken into account, along with other input.

“There was tremendous interest in the Atlantic and generally it was expressing concern, from every source,” Jewell said. “It’s not like we were just waiting for the Department of Defense to weigh in. This has been something that has had multiple public meetings over a prolonged period of time, over a year, and an assessment of all those comments led to this decision.”

Jewell said the market conditions cited were based on broader aspects of the industry over a five-year time span.

“Current oil prices were not a material factor in the decision that we made today,” she said.

Missed Opportunity?

Gov. Pat McCrory has touted the jobs drilling would bring and the revenue it would generate for the state.  Obama, he charged, was bowing to the wishes of his leftist supporters.

“President Obama’s total reversal can only be described as a special political favor to far-left activists that have no problem importing energy resources from countries hostile to the United States,” McCrory said in a prepared statement. “What’s more troubling is the President is closing the door before he even knows what resources can be harnessed in an environmentally sound way. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s deal could ultimately cost North Carolina thousands of new jobs and billions in needed revenue for schools, infrastructure, dredging and beach re-nourishment.”

Oil industry representatives, said keeping the Atlantic closed to oil exploration amounts to a missed opportunity.

In a statement from the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade group, president and CEO Jack Gerard said that the administration is going against the will of voters and state political leaders. According to a Feb. 2016 Harris Poll conducted for the API, 67 percent of registered voters polled in North Carolina support increased production of domestic oil and gas, and 22 percent are opposed. A poll of residents of oceanfront counties done for Coastal Review Online in July found that 46 percent opposed offshore drilling, while 42 percent favored it.

“The decision appeases extremists who seek to stop oil and natural gas production which would increase the cost of energy for American consumers and close the door for years to creating new jobs, new investments and boosting energy security,” Gerard said. “This decision stunts the safe and responsible path to securing the domestic energy supplies future generations of Americans will need.”

Hopper said a single lease sale would have had only negligible effects on the nation’s oil production. “In terms of ensuring that there is energy security even without this lease sale, we have done that.” she said.

Before the program is finalized and before any lease sales occur, the Interior Department will consider another round of public input on the proposal and its accompanying draft environmental study.

Learn More

• Read the draft proposed program

An oil industry lobbying group is fighting back against mounting resistance in coastal communities to proposed Atlantic offshore oil and gas drilling with a multi-state advertising blitz touting the potential benefits, but environmental advocates aren’t backing down.

Print ads promoting offshore energy development as safe, responsible and economically beneficial began running Oct. 28 in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina newspapers, including the Wilmington Star-News. Radio advertisements with a similar message started earlier in the month. Opponents say the ads are misleading.

Randy Sturgill of Southport, the southeast campaign coordinator for national conservation group Oceana, called the ad campaign a “desperate attempt to stem the tide of growing opposition” to drilling on the Atlantic outer continental shelf, or OCS, off North Carolina and other states.

“The information in the ad is from a flawed report, an old flawed report,” Sturgill said of the ads paid for by the American Petroleum Institute and its state affiliate, the N.C. Petroleum Council, or NCPC. “They’re still using numbers that have time and time again been proven to be inaccurate. They are grasping at straws. It’s smacks of desperation.”

David McGowan, NCPC’s executive director, said in a press release announcing the campaign that the petroleum industry already supports more than 140,000 jobs in North Carolina. Oil and natural gas development in the Atlantic OCS could create an additional 55,000 jobs for North Carolinians, he said. It would also help drive down energy costs for consumers and raise nearly $4 billion in state tax revenues by 2035 if the state succeeds in getting a revenue-sharing agreement with the federal government.

“North Carolinian voters embrace safe, responsible offshore energy development,” McGowan said. “With new technologies, offshore energy development is safer than ever and continues to drive coastal U.S. economies while existing with tourism and fishing. This opportunity is important to North Carolina’s future, expanding job opportunities and a key engine for the state economy.”

McGowan declined the opportunity to respond to critics of the campaign, including Sturgill. “At this point, we are going to let the press release serve as our public comments on the ad campaign,” he said.

The press release echoes the projections that appear in the ads, which are tailored for the individual states. However, the ads disclose that the figures come from a 2013 report by Quest Offshore Resources, a Texas-based company that does research for the industry.

Sturgill said the report had been widely discredited. He pointed to a more recent study by Doug Wakeman, an economics professor at the Meredith College School of Business in Raleigh and a member of the N.C. Coastal Federation’s board of directors. Wakeman contends the report’s employment and economic projections are questionable.

“It’s a matter of where they actually expect to be most successful in terms of drilling,” Wakeman said in June. “The place where the most attractive oil deposits are is fairly well north along our coast. Does that mean oil production and those jobs would go to more to places like Virginia Beach and the Norfolk area?”

Future oil prices are also a critical factor in trying to determine the economic benefits of drilling for the state, Wakeman explained. Higher prices not only mean greater profits for the oil companies, he said, but they also encourage drilling in economically marginal places.

When oil sells at $120 a barrel, as it did a couple of years ago, deposits that are expensive to drill, such as those in the deep-water Atlantic, are profitable, Wakeman said. They become less profitable as the price drops.

The Quest report and industry proponents suggest untapped natural oil and gas resources in the Atlantic could prove to be huge – 1.34 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2035. The Quest report was released in December 2013 before the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, announced its proposed leasing program for the mid-Atlantic. The 2017-2022 offshore oil and gas leasing program unveiled in January includes a 50-mile barrier and one lease sale in 2021 in federal waters off the Atlantic coast stretching from Virginia to Georgia.

Quest’s report does not consider the 50-mile buffer. It assumes leasing in the mid and south Atlantic would begin in 2018 and does not include the single lease sale cap. Those restrictions have an effect on the numbers in the Quest report, which has been routinely cited by politicians, including Gov. Pat McCrory.

Wakeman said the report assumed that the amount of oil that would be found with new technology would mimic what’s been found in other places. The economic projections in the report can be regarded as “likely overestimates,” he said.

In terms of lower prices, consumers may not notice a difference at the pump. Though nearly all domestic oil is kept in the U.S., the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties, or OPEC, still sets gas prices. Consumers in Alaska, which has the lowest gas tax in the country, still pay about 50 cents more per gallon than in North Carolina. Gas prices in other oil-producing states, including Texas and Louisiana, aren’t much cheaper than what North Carolinians pay today.

Stanley Riggs, an East Carolina University geologist and an expert on the North Carolina coast and its offshore waters, is also critical of industry projections. During a recent talk sponsored by the Sierra Club in Morehead City, Riggs noted that numbers cited by the industry were the same almost 30 years ago, in 1988, when a moratorium on drilling was put in place.

Sturgill also noted that in citing the potential economic benefits for the state – “with smart legislation (drilling) could generate almost $4 billion in revenue for the state in the next 20 years,” the ad states – the study assumes the federal government will share royalties from lease sales and production with the states. Such an agreement exists only on the Gulf Coast and that program is out of favor, with federal officials working to eliminate it.

A revenue-sharing bill for the East Coast states has been introduced, pushed by McCrory and the state’s pro-drilling Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr. But the Obama administration’s Interior Department is opposed because the measure would add to the federal deficit.

Carteret County Shore Protection Officer Greg “Rudi” Rudolph recently told the county’s beach commission that if a revenue-sharing were to pass, he believes the president would veto it. Obama is proposing that offshore revenue sharing in the Gulf be used instead for “broad natural resource, watershed and conservation benefits for the entire nation.” It’s part of his $4 trillion budget, unveiled in February.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was widely quoted as saying revenue sharing for select Gulf Coast states should be re-examined to provide “a fair return to the taxpayers across the whole United States.” She said the Land and Water Conservation Fund would be a good place for the money to go. Others have noted that the revenue sharing for the Gulf was enacted only after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005, and was largely seen as an effort to help repair the area’s economy.

The industry ad also states that, “71 percent of North Carolinians agree (that) safe and responsible offshore oil and gas development works for North Carolina,” but Sturgill said that level of agreement is doubtful.

Numerous coastal towns – including Emerald Isle, Morehead City, Beaufort and Atlantic Beach in heavily Republican Carteret County – have responded to local opposition to drilling by adopting resolutions. Wilmington, Carolina Beach and others are on record as opposing offshore seismic testing and drilling. More than 85 East Coast communities have approved similar resolutions. Opponents cite the potential damage to the tourist and fishing industries. Sturgill mentioned other polls which disagree with the industry’s numbers.

Sturgill said opposition has continued to grow. He said the anti-drilling movement has “exploded,” with the pace of resolution-adopting growing rapidly and the sentiment spreading inland, all the way to the state’s mountains.

“It’s not just coastal residents who care about the coast and what happens to it,” he said. “People all across the state view the coast and its natural resources as treasures. They don’t want to see the infra-structure that goes with the oil industry at our coast. They don’t want to risk the loss of those treasures for a small number of jobs and a very limited supply of oil. It’s not worth it.

“People are seeing through the industry’s blatant propaganda,” Sturgill added. “They know there is plenty of credible evidence out there to put to rest the industry’s claims. They’ve seen it.”

Learn More

Drilling Pros: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Poll: Drilling Foes Edge Out Supporters

MOREHEAD CITY — If offshore drilling took place off the East Coast, it’s unlikely that the N.C. coast would transform into the industrialized nightmare of beaches lined with oil refineries many locals fear. That’s because neither of the state’s port cities make appealing choices for the industry to bring oil or natural gas ashore.

That’s according to David McGowan, the executive director of the N.C. Petroleum Council. The council is a subsidiary of the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group for the oil and natural gas industry in the country. “I think the reality is, here in North Carolina, we’re much more likely to see the types of shore-basing and supply operations that would support the offshore industry but not the major infrastructure complexes, like refineries or processing facilities, that a lot of folks anticipate that we might,” McGowan said.

North Carolina doesn’t have refineries to process oil or natural gas or pipelines to transport them. Given there hasn’t been a new refinery built in the United States since 1976, McGowan says there’s a slim chance industry would build one a new one here.

Early this year the state Department of Commerce presented a report to the N.C. General Assembly on the feasibility of building a liquid natural gas export plant at either the Wilmington or Morehead City ports. The report notes that major hurdles would first have to cleared, including a lengthy permitting and review process, building a network of pipelines, an exporting facility and subsurface natural gas storage and keeping channels to the ports dredged to a depth of about 50 feet to accommodate the ships loading the gas. A more technical analysis is needed to determine profitability.

Here’s another good reason why there’s a slim chance that will happen: “We have fairly robust refining infrastructure right now on the East Coast in the Delaware and Philadelphia area,” said McGowan. “And so, most likely any resource that was produced off the East Coast would make its way to that existing refining infrastructure.”

What Morehead City or Wilmington could offer the industry is a port to supply and service offshore drilling operations with, for example, storage space, supply boats, helicopter bases or equipment manufacturing facilities, McGowan said.

Of the two state ports, Morehead City’s would finally be the golden child, and not the redheaded stepdaughter some in Carteret County have labeled it. Unlike its sister Wilmington port that 26 miles from open sea on the Cape Fear River, the Morehead City port is only four miles from the sea buoy – and less than a mile from Beaufort Inlet.

Morehead City is also closer to where the resources are expected to be found, based on offshore geology and previous industry interest. The last time the oil industry considered drilling off North Carolina was in the early 1980s, when several companies bought leases off Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks.

“From an efficiency standpoint,” McGowan said, “Morehead is certainly in a good situation. And I think, based on the little bit we know of the resource from the previous studies and information that’s been gathered offshore, the Morehead port is probably better geographically situated than Wilmington in that regard.”

Although Morehead City’s port is the closest port to open sea on the East Coast, it does present some challenges to any major industry wanting to settle in. As David Whitlow, the city manager of Morehead City, explained, there are a few big reasons why the city and its port might not be the obvious or immediate choice for the industry. “We don’t have an interstate highway, so we’re a tough place to get to by truck in volume,” Whitlow said.

Also, the only railroad line runs right through downtown. “Our rail is not an extensive rail system and doesn’t offer a lot of opportunities unless somebody wants to put a lot of money into coming up with a second route,” he said.

“Even the port here,” continued Whitlow, “the main part of the port is pretty well fully developed and committed, so that only leaves Radio Island as a possibility. And Radio Island isn’t the most accessible spot they can have for a port because they have a couple different bridges they have to cross to get there and it doesn’t have a lot of services out there. Access to the existing Route 70, Arendell Street, is challenging at best, even as Radio Island is currently developed. “So without a lot of additional infrastructure going into place there I can’t even see from a highway standpoint how Radio Island would serve to play a significant role. So what does that leave us with?”

Gov. Pat McCrory’s proposed bond referendum, Connect N.C., might be the answer to that question. The bond’s budget includes spending $125 million upgrading Morehead City’s port infrastructure to accommodate larger vessels, $75 million at Wilmington’s port for improvements and repairs and $50 million on expanding the rail system. Part of the governor’s 25-year vision for the region includes upgrading U.S. 70 to interstate standards and building a new rail and highway access bypassing Morehead City and reaching the port from the eastern side.

The channel to the port has also faced years of ongoing challenges with shoaling. “Getting the dredging situation under control is critical,” said McGowan, no matter the activity taking place, he added.

Whitlow said he was present earlier this year at a meeting of the Morehead City Port Committee, a nonprofit group interested in developing port business, when members of the American Petroleum Institute discussed the potential economic benefits of offshore drilling.

N.C. Ports Authority spokesman Cliff Pyron, said port officials are prepared to react if drilling plans move forward. “We could be the receiving facility for these types of projects but have not been approached by any particular business ventures at this point in time,”Pyron said Monday in an email.

Whether Morehead City is prepared to handle the population growth from the industry is another question.

“We’re pretty well fixed for water and sewer, so we have that infrastructure in place,” said Whitlow, “but let’s say 2,000 or 3,000 people came in to support the oil industry. Obviously under our current conditions we don’t have that kind of housing available.”

Both private and public sectors would have to pour their resources into building up for the big influx of workers and their families, he said. More emergency medical personnel, firefighters, police officers, sanitation workers, teachers and doctors would be required. Also, further expansion of the county hospital may be needed, Whitlow noted.

The growing pains expected if industry and jobs were to come and the stress on city resources weren’t Whitlow’s greatest fears. It’s, by nature of the industry, that all those people could be sent packing again a few years later. It’s the typical oil industry “boom and bust” seen in some Oklahoma and Texas towns that’s a bigger concern, he said.

“When (the industry) is growing it has a positive economic impact, although it doesn’t necessarily have a positive community impact; and when it’s dying, it certainly has a negative economic and community impact,” said Whitlow. “Growing too fast is not a good approach to things.”

If the industry selects a site in Morehead City, then city officials would have some say in what the industry could or couldn’t do, said Whitlow. However, if a firm becomes a tenant at the port, “the state does not have to go through a lot of our processes, and we don’t have any particular domain over some of what the state does,” he said.

Ultimately, site selection depends on a number of variables, many of which remain unknown, McGowan said. “All of that is dependent in large part upon what the resource is – is it oil? Is it natural gas, dry gas, is it wet gas? Where is it located exactly? What are some of the potential challenges to not only exploring and producing that product but then getting it to shore to refine and to make into the end product?”

Never do I tire of Ocracoke Island, I thought as my Mini Cooper bumped over the ferry ramp onto N.C. 12 to drive the 13 miles to the village.  It has a vibrant native community mixed with “come-here’s” that all passionately support its fishing heritage, culture and maritime history. And thanks to being part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the beach is pristine.

The next morning, I took advantage of the lull in the flood of tourists to chat with some locals about oil drilling.

“It’s like completely unsafe,” said owner Tara Grey, owner of Bead by the Sea, overlooking Silver Lake Harbor, “and it will ruin the environment. It will ruin everything what the whole world comes here to enjoy.”

Grey, 39, a long-time visitor to the island, had tired of her fast-paced career in the film industry. She recently moved full-time to the island, opening her shop in an old cedar shake house at the end of Community Square docks. Now she can look out her window and see sea turtles and dolphin.

Drilling technology, she said, is clearly not foolproof. “We should learn from our mistakes.”

But Grey faulted “a machine of oil corruption” for the continued risk.

“It’s criminal what’s going on – that the government supports this kind of industry because it’s about making money. They’re ripping off the entire country and ruining it.”

Mixed Feelings

Down the road at his shop on the harbor, David O’Neal, a native carver who owns Downpoint Decoy Shop, said he has mixed feelings about drilling. Surrounded by his meticulously crafted and lifelike ducks, O’Neal seemed to share Grey’s cynicism.

“To tell the truth,” he said, “fishing is shot anyway, so let them drill, if it will lower our taxes.”

Although he concedes a spill would be bad, if drilling is done right “at least it would keep the money in the United States.”

“It’s all politics anyway,” O’Neal said. “They don’t care what I think or what you think. Money controls everything.”

I caught Greg Honeycutt, who chairs the board of the community radio station, WOVV FM, as he was about to leave. Honeycutt said he signed a petition against oil drilling that was circulating around the island.

“My gosh, just think of the negativity of the press, of all the things that can happen environmentally, weather-wise,” he said. “I think it would provide more harm than anything.”

Before I headed off the island, I stopped at Ocracoke Oyster Co., where I met owner Janille Turner sitting at the darkened bar, doing paperwork.

Turner and her husband had run a popular eatery, the Topless Oyster Restaurant, on Dolphin Island in Alabama when the BP well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Businesses, including theirs, were devastated. It wasn’t just the oil that was harmful, she said. The dispersants that were sprayed to break it down burned your body, she said, and caused nosebleeds and respiratory distress.

“BP, they did nothing for any of us, business-wise, to recover,” she said. “It killed us. We hung in there for 11 months. It was terrible.”

Down East

After quick good-byes, I hurried to catch the late afternoon Cedar Island ferry, a 2-hour 15-minute cruise across Pamlico Sound that cost $15 and serves as an alternate route to Beaufort and Morehead City.

Disembarking at the tip of Carteret County, I drove for miles through the vast, flat and extraordinarily isolated marshlands of Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Eventually, I come upon some small homes with porches and tidy yards.  Fishing still provides some of the few jobs on the island.

One native fisherman, Bradley Styron, talked about how, when looking at the big picture, he can see some value in drilling.

“We would be hopefully less dependent on foreign countries for our source of energy,” he said, “but I think it would have to be done with a lot of caution.”

And there are more safeguards now than there used to be, he added.

“I think it has merits and certainly nobody wants to ruin the environment, but you know sometimes you have to take chances and have to weigh the options.”

In the tiny whistle stop of Davis, Joe Taylor, 74, was catching up with a friend at J.D’s Gas at the corner of U.S. 70 and N.C. 12.  But he didn’t seem to mind my interruption.

As far as opening the coast to drilling, Taylor, who works at James Styron Fish Co., said he would “love for it” to happen. For one thing, he said, the platforms would only make fishing better.

“Drilling for oil don’t hurt anything,” he said. “This country can’t live in a bubble anyway.”

Maybe there’s no way to completely prevent a spill, he said, but all the fears about disastrous consequences to tourism and the ecosystem are exaggerated. “That’s just down-minded people that think that,” he said. “It’s like you don’t cut your grass because you might spill some gas.”

A little down the road in Smryna, another speck on the map, Arlene Wood, also 74, said she wouldn’t have a problem with drilling, although she definitely would not want oil marring the beaches.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Wood, who was working at Lookout Grocery store. “We need the economy here. It’s very poor and we need to tap into it because it’s a resource and we should keep the money here.”

Beaufort

But even in the small coastal city of Beaufort, a pretty maritime community with a lot more commerce, folks put hopes for economic gain above concerns about pollution.

“If it’s going to benefit us, yeah,” said Robert Utley Jr., a forklift operator at Radio Island Marina. “The thing I’d be worried about is the leaks and stuff. If they could do it without spills, it’d be great. It would bring jobs.”

Desiree Rouse, 32, from Morehead, with her two young children in tow at Radio Island beach access, similarly favored offshore exploration, but worried about whether it could be done without an accident.

“I hope that they could,” she said. “But you can’t guarantee that.”

Rouse’s brother has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and her father is a retired Marine Corps sergeant major, so she is keenly sensitive to oil’s connection to U.S. conflicts in the Mideast and the benefit of domestic oil.

“I think that’s why we’re constantly going over there,” she said. “Yes, it’s good, we’ll have our own fuel. We’ll deal with our own resources. But you think of the future for our kids. Are they going to live in a world where they can’t swim in the ocean? And you want the country to stay safe.”

Marissa Chadwick, who was also enjoying a day at the Radio Island beach, said she believes drilling could bring jobs.

Chadwick, 16, said her father, a boatbuilder from Harker’s Island, has done shrimping off Ocracoke and has traveled to New Jersey to fish. Now, he’s trying to get a job on an oil rig in the Great Lakes.

“I think it would be a good thing,” she said, “because a lot of people around here can’t make money fishing or what-not.”

Pamlico County

Next, I headed inland to Cherry Point to take the 20-minute free ferry to Minnesott Beach, a Pamlico County community of 400 along the Neuse River that actually has no beach.

I stopped at Town Hall and found the sole person in the building, town manager Carolyn Braly, who good-naturedly switched gears without even a flicker of annoyance.

“After seeing what happened in the Gulf,” she said, responding to my inquiry about drilling, “I don’t trust many of the big businesses or the government to take care of us. I know there are little spills going on all the time. There’s leakage.”

Braly, 72 said she moved to Minnesott Beach in 2001 after being flooded out from Rocky Mount by Hurricane Floyd.  So she’s seen water pollution. It’s bad enough, she said,  that sewage dumped by some upstream communities, as well as diapers and kitchen garbage dumped by boaters, shows up in the Neuse River off Minnesott Beach.

“There’s so much pollution going on everywhere,” she said, “to make something else available to pollute the area.”

With just 800 or so residents, and up to 5,000 sailboats that dock there annually, the nearby waterfront town of Oriental, favored by sailors for its protected harbor, has its own version of tourism.

Peter Christiansen, 21, working his summer job at Inland Waterway Provision Co. in Oriental, is a business major at Western Carolina University whose parents have a home in Oriental. He said he is “not a fan” of drilling.

“I’m pretty protective of ocean waters, because I like to go out on the water and I like it clean,” said Christiansen, who enjoys sailing.  “Being out on the water, you know how pretty it is. And water should be pretty.”

Christiansen said he would be willing to pay more for gasoline, but he is not expecting dramatic improvements in U.S. energy policies. “I’m not optimistic, no. I think people are greedy.”

New Bern

Finally, the next morning, I arrive at my destination – New Bern, a lovely historic town on the upper Neuse River.

Even though it is tucked in from the ocean, people I spoke with here didn’t pause for an instant in considering the possible impacts of Atlantic oil drilling on their community.

“I moved here from Texas,” said Dean Quadir, manager of Persimmons Waterfront Restaurant in New Bern. “I spent some time in Galveston. There were dirty beaches – very, very dirty beaches,” he said.  “All you see is the platforms and the big boats. I wouldn’t want to see that here.”

Down the road from Tryon Palace, at the tail end of the historic district, I visited Linda Murrell’s beauty shop, Natural Creations Hair Salon.  Inside, Murrell, a 43-year-old mother of three, was in the process of braiding 12-year-old Gabrielle McRae’s hair.

But she said she’d be happy to talk about oil drilling.

“The first thing that jumped to my mind: ‘Are they crazy?’” she said, relating her initial reaction to the proposal. “North Carolina is a hidden treasure. Oh my god, just leave it alone!”

Murrell said that the money would not be worth the risk to the coast. “Not when it’s going to take away from the beauty,” she said. “Nobody’s going to come to the coast if they do this. Who wants to see an oil well?”

Gabrielle, who lives in Jones County, agreed with Murrell.

“I don’t think they should do it because it would kill the animals in the sea,” she said. “It will hurt the animals. There’s a lot more jobs they can do out here. Just don’t harm the water.”

Joyce Price, owner of Stanly Hall Ballroom near the riverfront, could see both sides. “Well it has to be done somewhere,” she said. “I would love for our country to be energy independent. If it’s a high risk to our environment, then I’d certainly have to consider that.”

But until people become more efficient in their energy use, and good alternatives are found, it would be nice to not depend on foreign oil.

“You see all the mayhem in the Middle East,” she said. “It just would be great to be free of them. We wouldn’t even have to go to war if nobody bought their oil anymore.”

Tess Malijenovsky contributed to this report.

NEW BERN — T­­he N.C. Coastal Federation and a panel of experts are set to explore later this month the changes and the risks offshore oil and gas development could bring to North Carolina.

The federation will host a forum, Shaping our Economic Future: Offshore Drilling in N.C., 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Friday, July 31, at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center. Planned discussions will delve into the economics, environmental implications and expected effects on coastal communities. Invited speakers include researchers, regulators, elected officials and coastal residents from the Gulf of Mexico to Currituck Sound. Registration, including lunch and break refreshments, is $20.

Ladd Bayliss is a coastal advocate with the federation and a forum organizer. She said the idea is to engage the public and provide a connection to those in decision- and policy-making positions.

“What we’re trying to do here is present information that is meaningful to those on the coast who will feel the effects. It’s to link people who live and work on the coast or are curious about the coast with high-caliber people who have experienced the offshore oil industry in their daily lives,” Bayliss said.

In putting together the list of invited speakers, diverse backgrounds and experiences were sought, Bayliss said. Various industries and fields will be represented, including scientists, regulatory officials, elected officials and others who have personal experiences with the oil and gas industries.

“The goal is for this to be a conduit of information to those actively involved in the decisions,” Bayliss said. “We want local decision-makers there and we are structuring it to allow the public adequate time and opportunity for questioning. We’re really trying to ensure that we can educate the public with correct information on the issue.”

The forum isn’t an entirely new approach for the federation, which has  used  similar public events to focus attention on the pollution problem related to large-scale hog farms in eastern North Carolina and on wind and other forms of alternative energies. Several hundred people attended those events. This time, the goal is to attract as least as many interested people from the region but also those from other parts of the state.

“We hope the forum bridges the gap between coastal communities and the central and western parts of the state because it (oil and gas development) really is going to affect the entirety of our state. It appears to be a coastal issue but it is something the whole state needs to pay attention to,” Bayliss said.

The forum will use information from scientific research as a starting point for discussion, especially when it comes to the potential risks to the N.C. coast and its existing tourism and commercial seafood industries. Questions to be posed include: If a spill occurs, what happens then?

The answers, Bayliss said, should be based on research that’s already done or provide direction on the type of research that still needs to be done. The forum will include local, state and federal perspectives, she said. Slated for discussion is the example of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and its effects on communities along the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’re not trying to sugar coat anything, we just want to give an accurate picture of what could happen and how it could affect the economies we already have in place. We’ll have some of the best researchers in the state on those topics,” Bayliss said.

The agenda includes Greg “Rudi” Rudolph, a geologist who heads the Carteret County Shore Protection Office. He will discuss what offshore drilling could mean for the N.C. coast. Rudolph said his presentation will cover the “rules of engagement” involving the outer continental shelf leasing process and the geology of North Carolina’s coast – where to look for oil and why.

“The structure of the continental shelf is very uneven and the oil and gas deposits therefore are also very uneven. The bulk of the oil and gas potential off Manteo is going to be Jurassic material that has decomposed and it’s going to be within the 50-mile buffer. That’s why the governor is talking about reducing that buffer to 30 miles,” Rudolph said.

He added that the ocean depths beyond 50 miles are also at the extreme, as compared to existing Gulf Coast drilling operations. That factor could make North Carolina’s offshore resources less attractive.

“Once you get beyond 50 miles you’re in over 10,000 feet of water. The deepest wells in the Gulf of Mexico are about 10,000 feet and they (the oil companies) don’t like to start deep and creep inward,” Rudolph said.

Rudolph said he will also discuss the state revenue-sharing component, “which obviously for me, wearing my local-government hat, is real important.”

Rudolph’s office monitors beach re-nourishment issues and is funded with revenue from the county’s five percent occupancy tax on hotel and motel rooms, inns and condominium rentals – money paid by visitors. Carteret County’s tourism generates more than $300 million in annual revenues and supports more than 3,000 jobs. The value of the tourism industry is one of the economic considerations to be explored during the forum, along with the promise of a state share of oil revenues.

Absence of revenue sharing could be a deal-breaker, Rudolph said, because the state would need the money to pay for infrastructure demands of the new industry here, and currently there is no revenue-sharing agreement in place.

“The Obama administration has signaled they don’t want one in place. That means Congress is going to have to put something in. From the local perspective, no revenue sharing means no drilling. It’s important not only for the economy but also to accommodate the infrastructure demands that might be coming our way,” Rudolph said.

Rudolph said many of the topics he plans to cover could serve as a launching point for discussion during the remainder of the forum.

Doug Wakeman, a Meredith College economics professor, will moderate a discussion of the economic implications of oil and gas exploration and development. Two reports produced in 2013 are the basis for much of the discussion of benefits to the economy from Atlantic offshore drilling.

One of those reports, commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute and the National Ocean Industries Association, estimates a $4 billion addition to the state’s economy and 55,000 new jobs by 2035, but those estimates are based on assumptions regarding revenue sharing and future oil prices, which are uncertain.

The other report by Michael Walden of  N.C. State University predicts similar outcomes but also notes the potential costs to North Carolina from development of energy resources, including the greatest potential cost: coastal damage from a spill. The potential annual average on-shore costs from possible environmental damage could reduce property values in the affected counties by between $636 million and $4.7 billion, according to the Walden report.

Wakeman is expected to discuss the contrast between the uncertainties of drilling and the known values of tourism and fisheries in the coastal counties likely to be most affected.

Lee Nettles, executive director of the Outer Banks Visitor’s Bureau, is to discuss the implications for small coastal communities with tourism economies.

Mike Giles, coastal advocate with the N.C. Coastal Federation, is to moderate a discussion of the environmental implications of oil and gas exploration and development with Len Pietrafesa, professor emeritus, Department of Marine Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at N.C. State University; Steve Ross, research professor, UNC-Wilmington Center for Marine Science;  Lawrence B. Cahoon, professor, UNC-Wilmington Department of Biology and Marine Biology; Charles “Pete” H. Peterson, joint distinguished professor, UNC Institute of Marine Sciences;  Doug Nowacek, an associate professor of conservation technology in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering at Duke University; and  Andy Read, a professor of marine biology at Duke University.

Coastal Review Online Editor Frank Tursi will moderate  a discussion, Pulse of the N.C. Coast, which Bayliss said will include input from six people who live and work at various locations along the N.C. coast on how it relates to what they do.

Slated to participate in the discussion are Willo Kelly, head of legislative affairs with the Outer Banks Association of Realtors in Nags Head; Mac Gibbs, a retired Hyde County N.C. Cooperative Extension agent; Carolina Beach Mayor Dan Wilcox; commercial fisherman Morty Gaskill of Ocracoke Island; Deborah Maxwell, New Hanover County NAACP president; and April Clark, operator of Second Wind Eco Tours and Yoga of Swansboro.

Renee Orr, chief of the Office of Strategic Resources with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – the federal regulatory body overseeing the Outer Continental Shelf leasing, exploration and development plans – is to discuss the federal review of potential for exploration in the Southeast Atlantic.

Donald van der Vaart, secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, will discuss the state of North Carolina’s assessment of offshore drilling. DENR is the state agency responsible for ensuring safe and responsible development of potential resources. The state has more than 64 million acres of outer continental shelf acreage – the most on the East Coast.

Also on the agenda are what Bayliss calls “boots-on-the-ground” participants who have experienced the changes the oil industry can bring to an area. One is Robert Fritchey, a commercial fisherman from south Louisiana and author of Wetland Riders, a book that publisher New Moon Press says explores  the culture, environment and economy of the coasts, the seafood industry, consumer advocacy, political and environmental journalism and rural conservation.

Another is Peg Howell, a former Chevron employee, who is slated to discuss infrastructure implications of oil and gas industries.

For more see our special reporting series: Offshore Drilling and the N.C. Coast.

On April 20, 2010, a cascading series of errors resulted in the largest oil disaster in history.

The Deepwater Horizon, a British Petroleum well 50 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico in 5,000 feet of water, exploded and began discharging oil. The federal government estimated that by the time the well was finally capped almost five months later, 4.9 million barrels of oil, or 210 million gallons, had leaked into the Gulf. A 2015 court proceeding put those numbers at 3.19 million barrels, or 134 million gallons.

The report by a national commission appointed by President Barack Obama to determine the cause of the worst oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry put the blame on a host of human and mechanical mistakes and failures. BP tried various measures to stop it, used 1.86 million gallons of a toxic chemical dispersant and eventually spent billions of dollars on cleanup, mitigation and compensation efforts that continue to this day.

Hundreds of miles of Gulf shoreline were oiled. Beaches were closed because of health threats, thousands of birds and marine mammals were sickened or killed and tourism and commercial fishing were disrupted in countless communities heavily dependent on them.

Time passed. The Gulf and its shoreline at least partly healed. And, eventually, in a world and nation still heavily dependent upon petroleum, thoughts of tapping the oil and gas believed to be in the Atlantic became less unpalatable. Finally, in July 2014, the Obama Administration, committed to an “all of the above” energy strategy, announced that it had given the go-ahead for a program that might lease tracts of the Atlantic beyond 50 miles from shore, including off North Carolina, for oil and natural gas drilling.

Could It Happen Here?

The announcement triggered praise from many, but the words on the lips of countless others were largely only two: “Deepwater Horizon.” And as companies gear up to test the waters off the Tar Heel state for oil and gas, the lingering question is: Could it happen here?

Harvey Seim, chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a man who was on the Deepwater Horizon response team, said that the 50-mile buffer offers some protection from potential problems if a disaster were to happen north of Cape Hatteras, in the area believed most likely to hold commercially significant undersea oil and gas deposits.

But, he said recently, there’s no guarantee, and there are many factors that would come into play, the largest of which are the position and flow of the Gulf Stream at the time accident and afterward.

The river of water flowing north off the East Coast could in theory take spilled oil thousands of miles to the English coast … or just a few miles away to Cape Hatteras.

“There are eddies, or rings, off the Gulf Stream every week,” Seim said. “They push water onto the continental shelf. If it (a spill) happens north of Hatteras, the chances are lower than south of Hatteras, but there is definitely chance oil will get in to our shores.”

Eddies off the Gulf Stream – although farther south, near Carteret County –  brought North Carolina’s first known toxic red tide ashore in 1987, he noted.

The dinoflagellate algae bloom came in on Halloween day, brought from the Gulf off Florida, where red tides are common. While it’s a wholly different kind of event than an oil spill or oil well blow-out, it illustrates that potential transport mechanism.

Generally speaking, the Gulf Stream passes closest to shore off North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The exact distance varies, but can be as little as 12 miles.

Oil on the Beaches

Larry Cahoon, a marine biologist at UNC-Wilmington, said it was once thought highly unlikely that oil from a spill outside the Gulf Stream, north of Hatteras, would make it to the N.C. shore and its estuaries. But more recent studies indicate there is at least a 30 percent chance.

“I wouldn’t put a number on it,” Seim said, “and it depends on the character of the oil, and the wind direction and speed at the time, what kind of weather you’re having. It also depends on how you try to clean it up.”

After the Deepwater explosion, cleanup crews sprayed almost 2 million gallons of a chemical dispersant called Corexit on the surface to break up oil slicks. The oil, though, likely ended on the bottom of the Gulf, and the chemical was still being found in oil on Louisiana beaches months later.

That’s important, Seim said, because there are times when wind direction would push surface oil in to shore, and times when the same wind might push subsurface oil ashore.

Where that oil might come ashore is even more problematic. Seim thinks it would likely end up south of Oregon Inlet if the rigs were north of Cape Hatteras because since water over the continental shelf “generally” moves north to south.

The risk of oil making it to the North Carolina shore after a major spill “is significant,” he said.

Seim also think that drilling 50 miles off the N.C. coast will be technically challenging, especially north of Cape Hatteras. “That’s going to put you in waters 2,000 meters deep, maybe as deep as 3,000,” he said. “Deepwater Horizon was about 1,500 meters. And the Gulf of Mexico is like a bathtub compared to the Atlantic off North Carolina.”

Seim said that until recently, there was little urgency to determine where spilled oil might go in the Atlantic.

“I still don’t think we have a very good sense of that circulation at times,” he said. “And I think there were a lot of people who were surprised at the results of what has been done recently.”

Charles “Pete” Peterson of the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City cited a simple rule to determine the potential for spilled oil reaching N.C. beaches: If you see sargassum on your beach, you could see oil.

Sargassum is a brown algae found in large masses in the Sargasso Sea, a region in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and in tropical waters around the world. It is distinguished by its brown color and small leaves resembling appendages that allow it to float. A cursory Google search shows that it’s found on virtually all of the state’s beaches at times, especially in the summer, when prevailing winds are south and southwest.

BP Spill as a Yardstick

So what could one reasonably expect if oil entered the Gulf Stream, crossed onto the continental shelf and made it to North Carolina’s estuaries and beaches?

Bob Deans, associate communications director of the Natural Resources Defense Council and author of the book, Deepwater Horizon: The Oil Disaster, Its Aftermath, and Our Future, said one can’t assume any disaster would be as bad as that one. But he said it’s fair to look to Deepwater as a harbinger of the kinds, if not the extent, of damage likely to occur.

“With Deepwater, you had 1,100 miles of shoreline impacted,” he said. “On the East Coast, that’s from Savannah to Boston. If you ask me if it’s worth the risk, I’d ask you to ask someone walking on the beach at Holden Beach or Nags Head if they’d like to see a 25,000-pound tar mat roll upon the beach, like happened 50 miles or so from New Orleans in March, five years after the blow-out.

“I’d suggest that you ask them how they’d like to see dead dolphins, and oil-covered sea birds, and bluefin tuna with birth defects and abnormalities in their hearts. I’d suggest that you ask them how things like these are going to help the tourism industry or the commercial and recreational fishing industries in North Carolina.”

Since the BP blowout, nearly 1,200 dolphins have been found dead in the affected area. Experts estimate that as many as 800,000 seabirds died, including 12 percent of the brown pelican population and 15 percent of the royal terns. Some say 25,000 marine mammals might have died. Hard figures are difficult to obtain.

The National Wildlife Federation, Deans said, reported that strandings of endangered and threatened sea turtles jumped from an average of about 100 per year before the spill to more than 500 a year for several years after the disaster.

“I’d just ask people in North Carolina if they think it’s worth risking these kinds of things for what most say could – could – be a six-month supply of oil, about 3.3 billion barrels,” Deans said.

Peterson is also worried about activities that might disrupt avian and marine life off Cape Hatteras, which is the area in which the Gulf Stream separates from the continental slope to the deep ocean, and where southward-flowing continental shelf water from the Middle Atlantic Bight converges with northward-flowing continental shelf water from the South Atlantic Bight, resulting in an up-welling of nutrient-rich water.

Marine mammals, such as bottle-nosed dolphin, tend to congregate in the area. Sea birds flock there in large numbers at certain times of the year, Peterson said. It’s also where northern marine fish species and southern species overlap, a big reason North Carolina has such rich commercial and recreational fisheries.

Seafood and Oil

It’s difficult to ascertain impacts an oil spill would have on fishing and fish.

Seafood safety is one issue. On May 3, 2010, less than two weeks after the BP spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, closed more than 6,800 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico to commercial and recreational fishing. The closure centered largely between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Pensacola Bay in Florida. By June 2, the area closed to commercial and recreational fishing grew to more than 88,000 square miles, or more than a third of Gulf of Mexico’s federal waters. NOAA started reopening waters a month later.

Generally, according to a NOAA fact sheet, fish are less likely to become contaminated or tainted because they typically are either not exposed or are exposed only briefly to the spilled oil.

The legacy of oil production, though, has plagued some areas of the Gulf Coast well before the BP disaster. For example, Texas health officials, advise against eating speckled trout and red drum caught in Galveston Bay because of PCB contamination. And Louisiana occasionally issues consumer advisories based on the presence of PCBs.

Shellfish are more likely than fish to become contaminated from spilled oil because they are more vulnerable to exposure and less efficient at metabolizing petroleum compounds once exposed. Shellfish are generally less mobile and have more contact with sediments, which can become contaminated and serve as a long-term source of exposure.

Among crustaceans, species that burrow are at the highest risk of exposure at spill sites where bottom sediments are contaminated, followed by species that use nearshore and estuarine benthic habitats, according to NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

Bivalves – oysters, clams, scallops – are at the highest risk of contamination because they are filter feeders and live primarily in shallow tidal and intertidal areas that are more likely to become contaminated.

However, just because fish and shellfish are eventually deemed safe to eat, that doesn’t mean their stocks won’t suffer long-term consequences from Deepwater Horizon or another major oil spill.

Disturbing Research

Field and lab studies published in 2013 by Fernando Galvez and others at Louisiana State University found that oil buried in sediments in the shallow waters of the Gulf triggered genetic reactions in the gills and livers of local populations of killifish, a prey for marine species vital to the region’s economy.

Embryos that were exposed to oiled sediments hatched at a rate 40 percent lower than those cultivated in samples from oil-free sites, and those that did hatch were smaller than they should be and had little “vigor.”

Galvez said this month that his team has continued its research primarily in the lab, and the evidence of effects has continued to mount. He also noted that some of his research indicates some organisms have started to develop a tolerance of hydrocarbons, “but we’re trying to tease out what the costs of that tolerance might be. Is there going to be reduced fecundity (reproductive rate)? They do seem to be smaller than the same species in the wild.”

Other research, he said, indicates that the toxicity of oil and its likely effects on fish eggs are increased by ultraviolet light, which of course is a normal condition.

He cautioned, however, that it’s too early to say whether the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster will have long-term effects on the stocks of fish in the area. He noted that industry officials have and are likely to continue to cast doubt on research that shows lasting effects on fish, just as they have cast doubt on studies that link dolphin deaths, even now, with Deepwater oil.

“They point out that there are a lot of toxins out there, and that there is no absolute proof,” he said. “Certainly, to a degree, they are correct. But the bottom line is that there isn’t any evidence of anything else, any major event or change, that would have had these impacts.”

Peterson, the UNC scientist, said he was aware of Galvez’ research, but said the findings appeared to apply only to the most heavily oiled marsh. Still, he said, it’s consistent with other research that shows that oil lingers in sediments in marshes for long periods of time, even decades.

Peterson worked for years on the team that studied the Exxon Valdez tanker oil spill in 1989 in Alaska. Despite the BP’s claims that much of the Gulf has returned to normal, he said, there’s plenty of evidence that if oil gets into wetlands – the breeding grounds for shellfish and countless finfish – impacts can linger for up to 20 years, if not more, in sediments, affecting fiddler crabs and the benthic organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

The red tide in North Carolina wiped out most of the state’s prized bay scallops – found in sea grass beds – in 1987, and Peterson and others have said that’s a good part of the reason the fishery has never recovered.

Even after two decades, he said, the crabs studied in Alaska don’t burrow as deeply and don’t display their normal response mechanism when threatened.

Thursday: Pipelines and refineries

The federal process for permitting offshore drilling is long, tortuous and confusing to those of us in North Carolina who haven’t had to deal with it before. Just look at the flow chart that accompanies this story. Rube Goldberg would be proud.

But take heart. The plans to drill for oil or natural gas off the N.C. coast are at the very beginning of the process. There will be a number of environmental studies and plenty of opportunities for public involvement before production wells – if it ever comes to that – are drilled.

In areas like the Gulf of Mexico where drilling is common and the infrastructure exists, It takes anywhere from four to 10 years after companies lease the seafloor from the federal government for production to start. In a so-called “frontier area” like the East Coast, where there are no wells currently and no undersea pipelines or other needed infrastructure, it’s anybody’s guess as to how long it would take for oil or natural gas to reach consumers.

Under the draft leasing plan announced by the federal government in January, only one lease is planned in the Atlantic in 2021. Don’t expect, then, to see any oil or natural gas from production wells until the 2030s at the earliest. And that’s barring any lawsuits or permit challenges.

The Process

The process involves a series of well-defined steps that are supposed to protect the interests of the public, the federal government and businesses.

Waters more than three miles from the shoreline and to the end of the continental shelf —about 200 miles — are considered the property of the United States government, legally defined as the country’s exclusive economic zone. Like any property owner who wants to insure their property will be used in a manner consistent with their wishes, the government establishes rules and regulations for its use and offers leases for the development of those resources.

The process for offering leases is spelled out in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and follows a proscribed schedule. Congress first passed the law in 1953 and has amended it several times since.

The law divides the outer continental shelf into four major management areas — Alaska, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic. Lease sales occur in five-year blocks with each area allotted a timeframe in which leases are available for purchase.

The current program, 2012-2017, includes only the Alaska and Gulf of Mexico management areas. The proposed 2017-2022 lease program that the Obama administration announced earlier this year includes a portion of the Atlantic region from the Chesapeake Bay to the Georgia-Florida line, the western Gulf of Mexico and the north shore of Alaska.

The new lease plan is still in draft form while the federal agency in charge of managing offshore leases, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, prepares an environmental study on the plan.

The next step in the process will be the release sometime next year of a so-called “Proposed Program.” It’s not the final document, although it will contain many of the final elements. There will be public meetings during a 90-day comment period. Then, BOEM will issue a “Proposed Final Program.” Congress will then have 60 days to act on the plan. The “Final Program and the Record of Decision” will follow, probably by the end of next year. Leasing in the Gulf of Mexico would begin in 2017.

The Devil and the Details

Because it is a multi-step process, the BOEM permitting procedure can seem confusing. To know when one phase ends and another begins can be difficult for the public to follow. Adding to the confusion, an environmental-impact statement, or EIS, required by the federal National Environmental Policy Act, runs parallel to and in conjunction with the development of the leasing plan. That process focuses on environmental effects and mitigation strategies and is integrated into the final leasing plan.

It’s important to remember that while they run concurrently, the environmental study and the leasing plan don’t follow the same schedules. As an example, the proposed leasing plan released by BOEM had a 90-day comment period, while the public had 45 days to comment on the EIS. The final EIS will have a 30-day waiting period, allowing for last-minute editing and informational changes that do not alter the content of the study. The leasing plan will reflect the EIS’ conclusions, but Congress will have 60 days to act on it before it becomes final.

Although the processes are integrated and the BOEM can’t develop a leasing plan without an environmental assessment, the two documents address different issues, said Caryl Fagot with BOEM’s public affairs office in the Gulf of Mexico region. She noted in an email that the U.S. secretary of the Interior considers eight factors in determining the size, timing and location of leasing. They include things like the geology and geography of the seafloor, the location of regional and national energy markets and needs, competing uses of the ocean surface and bottom and the interests oil and gas producers.

By comparison, based on information on the BOEM website, the EIS process focuses mainly on environmental and social issues, such as water and air quality, biology, physical oceanography and archaeology.

There is some overlap in the two processes, but there are also areas that are distinct from one another. NEPA permitting does not typically examine “interest of potential oil and gas producer” and BOEM has no provision for looking at undersea archaeological sites.

No Expansions

After the draft leasing plan is issued, the area under consideration can’t be expanded, although areas may be removed from plan. “Proposed areas and sales in the Draft Proposed Program can be deleted but not added,” Fagot wrote.

Enlarging the lease plan’s footprint would require restarting the entire process, BOEM officials say.

Expanding to proposed leasing plan for the Atlantic is particularly relevant because Gov. Pat McCrory is urging BOEM to move the current 50-mile buffer in the plan closer to shore.

If the leasing plan moves forward as presented, the sale of one lease in the Atlantic won’t take place until 2021. It is important to remember, the sale of a lease does not give the leaseholder permission to drill — only the right to submit a plan to drill, with another set of permits to be filed.

The permitting process for drilling for oil can be very lengthy, according to Fagot. “Even after the sale of a lease, there is a permitting process for exploration or drilling for resources,” she writes. “Many steps must be taken . . . and the time frame varies greatly depending on the lease location, water-depth, lease stipulations, availability of equipment, company priorities and the level of analysis and approvals needed at each step. It could take a year to 10 years.”

A drilling permit is a two-step process that introduces a new player in the permit mix: the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE. Created in response to what was seen as lax oversight following the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, the BSEE has more autonomy to enforce regulations than regulators had under the Minerals Management Service, the predecessor to BOEM.

The first permit is for an exploratory well with BOEM and BSEE issuing permits. Another EIS will be done and the state must certify that the drilling is consistent with its coastal-management program. If the company thinks the site has potential, a Development and Production Plan is created that will allow for a production well to be drilled. Again, another EIS and another consistency review. If BOEM signs off on the NEPA review and the state finds the use of the site consistent with its guidelines, the plan is submitted to BSEE who must approve the production well application.

This timeline of offshore leasing and drilling was compiled from material supplied from the American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil industry trade group.

An offshore lease is only a rental agreement with no guarantee that the leased area contains any oil or natural gas. In fact, most leased areas don’t contain oil and gas in commercial quantities.

Companies invest as much as hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire and maintain their offshore leases. When it buys a lease, a company gets the right to risk its limited investment capital to explore for resources and to produce them if the search yields a commercial discovery.

Since the only way for a company to recover this initial investment is to start production on a lease, there is a significant financial incentive to develop these resources in a timely manner. Companies are required under government leasing regulations to develop a lease between five and 10 years depending on the area and water depth or return it to the government. In general, leases not producing by the end of their term are relinquished back to the government, which can then re-lease them. All the money spent by the company to acquire and keep the lease is then lost.

The timeline from lease to production can vary from four to 10 years depending on water depth at the lease location, the drilling depth needed to reach the target reservoir, the distance from shore and from infrastructure, the geological characteristics of the reservoir and complexity of production facilities design.

Capital costs can be considerable for offshore projects, particularly those in deep water. Marine seismic surveys can cost upwards of $200,000 a day. The cost of offshore exploratory wells can range from $25 million to more than $100 million for some deep water prospects. It’s not unusual for a company to spend more than $100 million on an exploratory well only to come up empty with a dry hole.

If a company finds commercial quantities of oil or natural gas, the subsequent design and installation of the deep water production rigs may cost in excess of $1 billion.

In general, from purchase of the lease to first production can take anywhere from 7 to 10 years in areas that have existing infrastructure. In those instances, the timeline for exploration and production can include:

• Six months to a year for federal administration and execution of lease sales in unleased areas.
• One year for preliminary geological investigation and selection of areas of interest for additional seismic data acquisition.
• One year to two years to acquire and to process 3D (and new wide azimuth) seismic data, and to identify drillable prospects from this data.
• As much as a year or more to contract and schedule a drilling rig.
• Six to 10 months for drilling and completion of an exploratory well.
• Six months to a year for follow up evaluation of drilling results, which can include drilling a sidetrack well.
• Another two to three years for additional delineation drilling, and formulation of a plan for reservoir development if the exploratory well proves successful. During this time, the company also is working on pre-permit studies, permitting and design and procurement for production facilities, including surface and subsurface equipment and systems.
• One year or more for facilities installation, followed by development drilling, which may take from one to two additional years. During this period, the company is involved in design, permitting, engineering, procurement and installation of a pipeline or offshore mooring system to bring the production to market.

One recent example is Anadarko’s Independence Hub, a natural gas facility in 8,000 feet of water about 120 miles from Mississippi. The lease was purchased in the Sale 181 area in December 2001. The first exploratory well was drilled in 2003, with first production seen in mid- 2007.

The history of oil drilling off the East Coast and in North Carolina has been one of dashed hopes and dry holes.

Ten oil and gas lease sales have been held in the Atlantic between 1976 and 1983, according to federal records, and 51 wells have been drilled along the continental shelf. Five were deepwater test wells commissioned by the federal government, and the rest were drilled by oil companies. Almost all were dry holes.

The exceptions were five wells off New Jersey that showed some evidence of natural gas, but they were all abandoned because the companies didn’t think the wells would be commercially viable with the technology then in use.

Currently there are no active oil and natural gas leases in the Atlantic.

The track record on land has been even worse in North Carolina. Since 1925, 129 oil or natural gas wells were drilled in the state. All but 13 were plugged as dry holes, and no commercial quantities of oil or natural gas were found in any of them.

In Eastern North Carolina, Esso dug two tests near Cape Hatteras soon after World War II. Both were dry and abandoned. A well in Camden County in 1952 went down 6,500 feet before some natural gas was detected. It, too, was plugged and abandoned. About 86 wells were drilled in and near Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. All were dry.

1896: Offshore drilling for oil began off the coast of Summerfield, Calif., just south of Santa Barbara. Rows of narrow wooden piers that looked like boardwalks extended up to 1,350 feet from the shoreline, their piles reaching 35 feet to the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Using the same techniques then used on land, steel pipes were pounded 455 feet below the seabed. The field produced a modest yield, peaked in 1902 and was abandoned several years later. The project left behind a beach blackened by oil and marred by rotting piers and derricks. A winter storm in 1903 destroyed many of the derricks.  The remnants of America’s pioneering offshore rigs were wiped out by a strong tidal wave in 1942.

1947: An offshore milestone was reached when Kerr-McGee Oil Industries drilled the first productive well beyond the sight of land, in shallow water about 10.5 miles off the Louisiana coast.

1950: Congress failed to pass a bill authorizing the federal leasing of subsea drilling, bringing offshore drilling to the halt. States had leased areas off their coasts, but President Harry Truman asserted in 1945 exclusive federal jurisdiction over the entire continental shelf. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1947 and 1950 upheld Truman’s claim, but no federal law allowed the U.S. Department of Interior to issue offshore leases.

1953: Two landmarks bills were passed to settle the impasse. The Submerged Lands Act gave most states the right to lease up to three nautical miles from the coast. It allowed two states, Florida and Texas, to claim a nine-mile jurisdiction. The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act then gave the federal government the authority to issue leases beyond state jurisdiction. The federally administrated area became known as the Outer Continental Shelf, or OCS. It’s a legal designation that’s more reflective of legislative negotiations than the actual geology of the seafloor.

1954: Offshore production of oil in federal waters stood at only 133,000 barrels a day, or about 2 percent of total U.S. production.

1968: The Prudhoe Bay State No. 1 exploratory well discovered what would become the largest oil field in North America in state waters off the north coast of Alaska. Regular production began the following year, exceeding a million barrels a day by 1978.

1969: A blowout at a Union Oil Co. well located in the Santa Barbara Channel produced an 800-square-mile slick of oil that blackened an estimated 30 miles of Southern California beaches and soaked a substantial number of sea birds in the gooey mess. The blowout lasted 11 days and ultimately released about 80,000 barrels of oil. It was at the time the greatest offshore drilling accident in American waters. It prompted stronger federal protections and inspired the first Earth Day.

1971: Offshore production in federal waters reached 1.7 million barrels a day, roughly 20 percent of U.S. production.

1975: The first discovery in deep water — depths of 1,000 feet or more, though definitions vary — came at Shell Oil Co.’s Cognac field in the Gulf of Mexico. Technology had yet to evolve from shallow to deep water, just as it took a while to develop from land to sea. Advances in that technology in the 1980s would begin shifting production in the Gulf to deeper water.

1982: Congress started including a provision in appropriations bills that prohibited offshore oil and gas development in the majority of the OCS. President George H.W. Bush in 1990 issued a similar directive that also banned offshore drilling in the majority of the OCS, which was extended by President Clinton in 1998 until 2012. Despite these moratoriums, drilling was allowed to continue in large portions of the Gulf of Mexico and off the Alaskan coastline. President George W. Bush subsequently rescinded the executive branch offshore drilling moratorium and in 2008 introduced an updated schedule for 2010-2015 that contained proposals to lease lands for drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

1990: Offshore production in federal waters stood at only 1.1 million barrels a day – just 5 percent more than a decade earlier. A collapse in world oil prices in the mid-1980s had stalled the expansion of onshore and offshore drilling and had struck a devastating blow to the economies of Louisiana and Texas.

1997: More than half of the exploratory wells in U.S. waters proved successful thanks in large part to improvements in 3-D seismic technology.

Late 1990s: Production in deep water – a minor factor just 10 years earlier – surpassed that in shallow water for the first time. Five years later, deep water produced twice as much as shallow water, and an increasing amount of oil was coming from ultra-deep water — 5,000 feet and deeper.

2002: Offshore oil in federal waters topped two million barrels a day after 13 consecutive years of increased production.

2006: New federal legislation allotted Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama a 37.5 percent share of the revenues derived from leasing activity in the so-called 181 South area off the coast of Alabama.

2008: Lease and royalty payments to the federal government reached a record $18 billion. The payments have become the second-largest source of federal revenue after income taxes.

2010: A blowout at BP’s Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The U.S. government estimates that 4.9 million barrels gushed from the leak for 87 days before it was sealed. The Obama administration put a halt to all deepwater lease sales after the spill, including one scheduled off Virginia.

2014: The Obama administration opens the Atlantic to seismic testing. Offshore oil production in federal waters falls to 1.3 million barrels a day – almost all from the Gulf of Mexico – after reaching a high of almost 1.7 million before the BP blowout.

2015: The federal government releases a draft offshore leasing plan for 2017-2022 that for the first time in decades includes portions of the Atlantic OCS, including offshore North Carolina.

First of a series

For the first time in almost three decades, the federal government is considering opening up the Atlantic Ocean off the N.C. coast to oil and natural gas drilling. The first of the many environmental studies has been drafted, the first of the many public hearings has been held. And the first of many questions has been raised.

How much oil or gas is out there? When will they go get it and where will they drill? Will it come ashore somewhere along our coast? Will the price of gasoline drop as a result? Will drilling generate any jobs for local people or much money for the state treasury? Where will that oil go if there is an accident or spill?

Coastal Review Online this week begins to answer those questions and many more. This is the first of more than 40 stories that we will publish over the next two months on offshore drilling and its potential effects on the N.C. coast. In our most ambitious reporting project, seven reporters have spent several months talking to dozens of people trying to determine what drilling might mean to the state’s coastal environment, economy and lifestyle.

The Schedule

Week 1 — Science, Politics & Process

June 8: General overview of series, introduction of authors.

June 9: The history of oil exploration along the N.C. coast, including Mobil Oil Corp.’s proposal for an exploratory well off the Outer Banks in the 1980s.

June 10: The federal process for leasing and permitting wells offshore and why it will likely take more than a decade to play out. The geology of the continental shelf of the East Coast and why oil or natural gas might lie beneath the sea and in what quantities.

June 11: The politics of oil in the N.C. General Assembly and what drives Gov. Pat McCrory’s push for   drilling.

June 12: The geology of the continental shelf of the East Coast and why oil or natural gas might lie beneath the sea and in what quantities.

Week 2 — Pros, Cons & Reality

June 22: The pros of drilling: jobs and gas pump relief. Job creation and lower gasoline prices are among the main benefits of drilling, say its proponents. How realistic are their job forecasts and will gas prices fall if oil is found off North Carolina?

June 23: The pros of drilling: money, money, money. An oil industry study that is often quoted by proponents forecasts that North Carolina could reap more than $9 billion a year by 2035 in oil royalties and increased tax revenue. We take a hard look at the numbers.

June 24: The cons of drilling: oil spills and accidents. How likely is a spill or accident from an offshore rig and where would the oil likely go?

June 25: The cons of drilling. Intense industrialization is required to transport, store and process oil or natural gas. Is that likely to occur in North Carolina and what would the effects be on the coastal environment if it does?

June 26: Tourism and oil. The fear of what an oil spill might do to the coast’s tourism industry is at the center of much of the opposition among local governments. In North Carolina, from the Outer Banks in the north to Sunset Beach in the south, beaches and coastal towns draw more than 11 million visitors each year. In 2013 alone, visitors spent just shy of $3 billion in the eight oceanfront counties, according to the state Department of Commerce.

Week 3 — Pulse of the Coast

July 6-7:  Calabash to Morehead City. We poll coastal residents about their support for offshore drilling and send a reporter to spend a week traveling along the southern coast talking to people about the prospects of drilling off our shores.

July 8-9: Corolla to Morehead City. Another reporter travels the northern coast to gauge the sentiments of residents there.

July 10: Morehead City or Wilmington. We explore whether these port cities along the central coast could become a staging and supply port for the drilling rigs and what that mean for a tourist town.

Week 4 — America’s Oil Coast

Fall: We send a reporter to the heart of the country’s oil region along the Gulf of Mexico where he reports back on life amid the oil rigs and refineries.[/su_shaded_box_right]

We’ll run the results of all that reporting on alternate weeks, starting this week with stories about the history of drilling in North Carolina, the geology of the Atlantic Ocean and why oil or gas might be out there, the federal process that manages offshore drilling and the politics in Raleigh that are promoting it.

Other stories in the series will explore the potential benefits of drilling to the state’s economy and the likely environmental effects on the coast in the event of a spill or accident. We’ll poll coastal residents to gauge their support for drilling, and two reporters traveled the coast, from Calabash to Corolla, talking to people about the subject.

Setting the Stage

First, though, let’s catch up as to where we are.

The Obama Administration did the expected in late January and announced plans to potentially open portions of the Atlantic coast, including offshore North Carolina, to oil and natural gas drilling for the first time since Mobil Oil proposed an exploratory well off the Outer Banks in the mid-1980s.

In keeping with Obama’s all-of-the above approach to energy development, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, released a draft five-year leasing plan that would begin in 2017. The plan includes all federal waters 50 miles off the mid- and south-Atlantic coasts, from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to the Georgia-Florida border. Also included in the plan are areas in the central and western Gulf of Mexico and off the north coast of Alaska.

The proposed leasing plan is the initial step in a long, tortuous federal permitting and review process for offshore leasing, exploration and finally production. That process for the Atlantic, where no wells exist, will take more than a decade to play out if it continues to move forward.

The announcement followed a decision by the Obama administration last year to allow companies to use sound waves to survey the seafloor in the Atlantic in search of oil and natural gas. These so-called seismic tests are controversial because critics charge that they can harm marine mammals, such as whale and dolphins.

BOEM has since received 10 applications from companies to conduct the tests. Four of those applicants want to survey off North Carolina’s coast and more applications are expected, according to state regulators. The state has approved three of the applications so far, and testing could begin later this year.

Battle Lines Form

Offshore drilling has a contentious history along the N.C. coast, and it soon became clear that a fight is brewing this time as well. The first skirmish was in Wrightsville Beach about a month after BOEM announced the leasing plan. The spark was the first of the agency’s two public hearings in North Carolina on the plan.

Drilling proponents gathered that afternoon across the waterway in downtown Wilmington. Over boxed lunches supplied by the country’s largest oil industry trade group, the crowd of mostly businessmen listened to speakers extol the benefits of drilling: good-paying jobs, money for state and local budgets, energy independence and strengthened national security.

The message mirrored the one that Gov. Pat McCrory has been taking all across North Carolina. As the leading drilling cheerleader in the state, McCrory has promoted offshore drilling in testimony before Congress, urged BOEM to allow exploration closer to shore and supported exploring for oil and natural gas within three miles of the state’s coastline. He also heads a group of East Coast governors who have been urging Obama to open up the Atlantic to drilling.

Using an industry-sponsored economic study, McCrory has said offshore drilling will provide thousands of new jobs in the state and contribute more than $9 billion to the state treasury by 2035. In later stories, we’ll explore the accuracy of those predictions and the oil industry’s close ties to the governors’ group that McCrory heads.

There wasn’t much talk about jobs at the press conference that 10 environmental groups held at the hotel where BOEM had its meeting that day in Wrightsville Beach. The BP Deepwater Horizon was the featured attraction. One wall was dominated by a huge photograph of the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 in the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It was engulfed in flames and ringed by fire boats spewing jets of water.

Speaker after speaker raised the specter of oil-encased seabirds, blackened beaches and a dying tourism economy if something like that were to happen here. We’ll examine the likelihood of all that during the second week of the series.

More than 400 people attended the BOEM hearing that day in Wrightsville Beach. Almost 700 showed up a month later at a similar hearing in Nags Head, the largest turnout in BOEM’s five-year history.

“I would say we have heard from a lot of people who are opposed,” an agency spokeswoman said afterwards.

At least a dozen communities along the coast have passed resolutions opposed to offshore drilling, seismic testing or both.

And in Manteo a group of old oil warriors began organizing again for a fight they thought they had won 25 years ago.

Tuesday: Mobil Oil and the history of drilling along the N.C. coast.

Covering the Issue

Seven reporters and editors will be involved in this series on offshore drilling as it unfolds over the next two months.

Here they are:

Frank Tursi: The editor of Coastal Review Online, Tursi conceived of this project, was its lead editor and wrote several of its stories. The author of three books, Tursi was a 30-year newspaper journalist before joining the N.C. Coastal Federation in 2002. He was the senior environmental reporter in North Carolina and was among the lead reporters of Mobil Oil Corp.’s proposal in the mid-1980s to drill an exploratory well of the N.C. coast. His environmental journalism has won numerous awards, including three Public Service Awards from the N.C. Press Association and the Scripps-Howard National Environmental Journalism Award. An avid fishermen and model boat builder, Frank lives with his wife, Doris, in Swansboro.

Catherine Kozak: A longtime reporter on the Outer Banks, Kozak also traveled the coast talking to residents about offshore drilling. Born and raised in the suburbs outside New York City, Kozak worked for 15 years for The Virginian Pilot. During her career, she has written about dozens of environmental issues, including oil and gas exploration, wildlife habitat protection, sea level rise, wind energy production, shoreline erosion and beach nourishment. Kozak has a journalism degree from the State University of New York at New Paltz. She lives in Nags Head and covers the Outer Banks and the northeast coast for Coastal Review Online.

Tess Malijenovsky:  The assistant editor of Coastal Review Online, Malijenovsky helped plan the project and edit its stories. She was also one of two reporters who traveled the coast talking to residents about offshore drilling. Malijenovsky joined the N.C. Coastal Federation in 2013. She grew up in Charlotte and received her bachelor in fine arts degree in creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she was editor-in-chief of the university’s literary arts magazine, Atlantis.

Brad Rich: Rich has written about fishery and environmental issues along the central N.C. coast for 30 years. For this series, he delved into the potential environmental and social effects of offshore drilling. Currently a reporter for the Tideland News in Swansboro, Rich covers the central coast for Coastal Review Online. He lives in Hubert with his wife, Gwen, their 18-year-old daughter and a rambunctious black lab named Satchmo.

Kirk Ross: A longtime N.C. journalist based in Chapel Hill, Ross is the lead legislative reporter for Coastal Review Online. He explored the political support for offshore drilling in the N.C. General Assembly. Ross’ reporting and opinion pieces have appeared in multiple publications, including the Independent Weekly, in Durham. He is also the founder of The Carolina Mercury, an online N.C. politics website.

Kip Tabb: Every reporting project like this needs a guy like Tabb. He’s fascinated by process and how things work. So he was given the job of explaining the byzantine federal permitting and monitoring process that will play out over the next decade or more if offshore drilling is pursued on the East Coast. A freelance writer on the Outer Banks, Tabb has covered transportation, environmental and related topics for a number of publications. He writes regularly for Coastal Review Online. He’s the former editor of the North Beach Sun, a quarterly newspaper on the northern Outer Banks covering community interest issues.

Trista Talton: Talton covers the southeastern N.C. coast for Coastal Review Online. Her assignment for this project was to explore the potential benefits of drilling, including the jobs it could spawn and the money it could provide to state and local governments. Talton is a native North Carolinian who, after graduating from Appalachian State University in 1996, pursued a career in journalism. She has covered everything from education and local governments to law enforcement and military. She embedded with Marines in Kuwait for the start of the Iraqi war in 2003, spent time in New Orleans with N.C. National Guardsmen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and lived on a Coast Guard cutter to write about patrolling the shores of New York and New Jersey following the Sept. 11 attacks. She lives with her husband and two sons in Jacksonville.

I was walking on the beach at Bear Island on Sunday, Nov. 1, 1987, wondering why dozens of dolphins were surfing the waves and my two dogs kept sneezing. Later that afternoon, it was announced that a red tide had washed ashore, and public health officials began warning everyone not to eat seafood and to stay out of the water. The next day scientists identified a toxic dinoflagellate in our coastal waters, and they later figured out that this toxin had come from the Gulf Stream.

For the next 3.5 months, about 50 percent of the oyster beds and 95 percent of the clamming waters in the state were contaminated. Fear of going near the water had dramatic effects on tourism, although the industry was fortunate that the toxin had invaded during the off-season.  The economic losses were conservatively estimated at $25 million according to NOAA researchers.  The T&W Oyster Bar on N.C. 58 near Cape Carteret displayed a sign of the times—proclaiming it only served “Safe Out-of-State Seafood.”

The red tide proved that what goes on in the Gulf Stream can have a direct effect on our coast. The Gulf Stream is one of the natural wonders of our planet—it provides for rich fisheries throughout much of the world. It directly influences our climate, and since it sits on a hill of water about three feet high it even influences sea level on the N.C. coast. It is a natural treasure that is critically important to the health of our coast and the world’s oceans.

For all these reasons, it’s hard to comprehend why anyone would want to put the Gulf Stream and our coast at greater risk of catastrophic environmental damage. The recent announcement by the Obama administration to perhaps allow oil and gas rigs off our coast is worth losing sleep over. If someone screws up—which someone always does when it comes to oil and gas activities—it’s impossible to calculate the long-term environmental, economic and social consequences that will occur.

Most estimates are that oil and gas reserves off our coast are pretty small in terms of providing for the daily needs of the United States. However, there is probably enough energy off our coast to make the oil corporations and their stockholders a lot of money. That explains why the oil industry campaigns so hard to be allowed to drill.

The federal agencies will now evaluate if they should lease sites for drilling that would be at least 50 miles off the coast. That would put wells in deep, stormy waters near or in the Gulf Stream. Drilling rigs will closely resemble BP’s ill-fated Deepwater Horizon in terms of size, depth and risk.

Just recently both our U.S. Senators quoted an oil industry study of the economic benefits of drilling. That study is based upon the following assumptions: “Atlantic OCS drilling would be expected to begin in 2019, with an average of 30 wells drilled annually from 2017 to 2035 mostly in deep water. In the last five years of the forecast (2031-2035) an average of 66 wells would be expected to be drilled annually as the number of active projects grows and the need for development wells increase.” Doing the math, that works out to 780 wells lining our Atlantic waters.

And while they focus on the revenue side of oil and gas development, politicians aren’t talking about the huge expenditures associated with accommodating a big surge in temporary and permanent coastal residents. What are the costs associated with housing, schooling and taking care of this new workforce that comes and goes along our coast?

The actual amount of oil and gas, and where it will be brought ashore if it is discovered, has not been determined.  However, most experts have long ago concluded that North Carolina won’t be a hotspot for employment related to this industry. Most insiders believe that the vast amount of support and staging for deep-water drilling will go to Norfolk and Charleston.

And even if everything occurred as drillers might dream, the economic returns on opening up our coastline to the petrochemical industry are at least a decade or more away. North Carolina has one of the most productive and healthy coastal ecosystems left in the United States, and it’s a real pity that we aren’t putting all our home-grown human energy and economic development resources into working to better tap the economic potential of our clean natural assets that are capable of making our existing coastal economy grow and prosper.

Our political leaders were united in their opposition to oil and gas drilling off the N.C. coast when it was proposed more than 25 years ago. Under the leadership of then governor and sailor Jim Martin, our coastal treasures and economy were protected. Now that this issue is being widely discussed and evaluated once again by coastal residents and visitors, and they are beginning to learn more about what is really being planned, it will be fascinating to watch which way the political winds blow our state’s leaders.

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

Gov. Pat McCrory welcomed a new federal environmental review that sets broad standards for companies to use seismic testing and other methods to look for oil and natural gas under the ocean floor.

The study by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management encompassing coastal waters from Delaware to Florida was released last week.

A N.C. State University study estimates that energy exploration off the coast would produce 1,122 jobs and $181 million annually for the state during its first seven years, a statement from McCrory’s office said.

Gov. Pat McCrory

But one environmental group warns that damage to marine life from seismic air guns probing for pockets of oil and gas would mean bigger losses for commercial and recreational fisheries, tourism and coastal recreation.

“Seismic air gun testing isn’t simply a method of surveying a coastal area for its energy potential,” Oceana said in a statement after the review was issued. “The blasts from seismic air guns are 100,000 times more intense than a jet plane engine and are emitted every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, for weeks and months at a time.

“It’s disruptive, destructive, and directly threatens the survival of marine creatures like dolphins, whales, and turtles.”

The Sierra Club also criticized the review, and the town council in Carolina Beach in Brunswick County unanimously passed a resolution Friday in opposition to seismic testing. The Kure Beach council, after listening to hours of public comments, had earlier last month split on the topic and didn’t pass a resolution. Mayor Dean Lambeth came under severe criticism for writing a letter endorsing the testing off the N.C. coast.

But McCrory, chairman of the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, noted that the study, called a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, included extensive safeguards for marine life.

A summary by the bureau said: “Mitigation efforts include requirements to avoid vessel strikes, special closure areas to protect the main migratory route for the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, geographic separation of simultaneous seismic air gun surveys and Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) to supplement visual observers and improve detection of marine mammals prior to and during seismic air gun surveys.”

The summary went on to say that the environmental statement does not authorize seismic surveys. Instead, it sets up a framework for “additional mandatory environmental reviews for site-specific actions” and measures to govern the surveys.

People packed the town council chambers in Kure Beach to tell the council members what they thought of offshore seismic testing.

“We have the technology and the environmental expertise to responsibly explore the oil, gas and wind resources off our coast,” McCrory said. “It’s time the states be allowed to get off the sidelines and start producing jobs and energy for our economy.”

The review was ordered by Congress in 2010 to update old data and examine the environmental consequences of offshore testing. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is part of the Department of the Interior.

“Analysis of this scale is a significant undertaking that has involved extensive public input and coordination among several federal agencies and state governments,” BOEM Director Tommy P. Beaudreau said in a statement.

“The Department and BOEM have been steadfast in our commitment to balancing the need for understanding offshore energy resources with the protection of the human and marine environment using the best available science as the basis of this environmental review.”

Included in the review, the bureau reported, are analyses of “deep-penetration and high-resolution seismic surveys, electromagnetic surveys, magnetic surveys, gravity surveys, remote-sensing surveys and geological and geochemical sampling.”

KURE BEACH — A N.C. beach town mayor’s support of the petroleum industry’s push to explore for oil and natural gas resources off the Atlantic coast is stirring up local controversy as the federal government prepares to make a decision that could open the door to offshore drilling from Delaware to Florida.

The U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, is expected to release next month its final environmental impact statement on seismic surveying and the possible affects testing could have on marine life in the Atlantic.

Last month, Kure Beach Mayor Dean Lambeth signed a letter endorsing seismic testing for oil and gas off the North Carolina coast. The letter was written by an industry lobbying group.

The industry for decades has used seismic surveying to pinpoint potential energy resources beneath the ocean floor. Such tests were last conducted in the Atlantic about 30 years ago and industry officials say, with today’s technology, they can get a more accurate picture of what lies beneath the seabed.

The center of the controversy over testing is the sound created during the surveys. Surveys use compressed air to create sounds waves, which travel from the ocean’s surface, to the seabed and back.

There are two methods of seismic surveying. Seismic airgun surveys produce acoustic pulses that are within the hearing range of all marine mammals. High resolution geophysical surveys typically use electromechanical sources like side-scan sonars, boomer and multi-beam depth sounders, some of which do not produce sound detectable to marine mammals.

These tests, environmentalists say, produce high-frequency sounds that harm marine mammals and interfere with the habits of fish populations crucial to the commercial fishing industry.

Groups including the Surfrider Foundation and Oceana, the world’s largest international ocean conservation organization, are petitioning the government against allowing the tests. Both organizations also oppose offshore drilling.

“We’re very concerned about the wildlife impacts,” said Ethan Crouch, chairman of the Surfrider Cape Fear Chapter. “Sound travels tremendously far in the water. To put it into perspective, the blasts from seismic airguns are 100,000 times more intense than a jet engine.”

Petroleum officials say there is no evidence that sound from seismic surveys harm marine mammals and that the industry uses precautions to mitigate impacts on marine life.

Ethan Crouch

David McGowan, executive director of the N.C. Petroleum Council, said the industry will follow all rules, regulations and laws to ensure testing is done safely. The council is the state chapter of the American Petroleum Institute, the only national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry.

“I do come at it from a perspective of someone who grew up in Wilmington,” he said. “I love the coast. I’m an avid outdoorsman. First and foremost on my mind is the protection of our environment and natural resources and the tourism that drives the economy in our area. I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination the industry is saying those things are not important. Our message is it’s important to understand what kind of resources we have off our coast, what type of resources, how much and the challenges of trying to explore those resources. We think it makes sense to go out and do our due diligence. Seismic surveying is the first step in that process.”

Acoustic Effects

BOEM’s draft EIS examined the potential affects airgun and non-airgun surveying might have on marine mammals and fish in the Atlantic.

Both methods of surveying could “affect individuals from all marine mammal species within” the affected area, the document notes.

That’s an estimated 138,500 dolphins and whales, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, blue whale, fin whale, sei whale, sperm whale and humpback whale, according to the study. The West Indian manatee and three pinniped species, which include seals, sea lions and walruses, are excluded from the list of impacted mammals because of they do not inhabit the areas in which testing would be conducted.

The draft study states that most of the effects to marine mammals “are expected to be avoided by mitigation.”

“Although these impacts are expected to be avoided to the maximum extent practicable, the mitigation measures included in the proposed action would not be 100 percent effective,” according to the study.

Incidents where behavioral patterns, including migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding or sheltering, may be interrupted by non-airgun surveys, “are estimated to range from 0 to 476 individuals,” a year.

Surveying is even audible to humans in some cases, said BOEM spokeswoman Connie Gillette.

“The EIS does analyze effects to recreational resources, including diving,” she wrote in an email. “Hearing impacts on divers were scoped out as an effect of the action given the characteristics of G&G (geological and geophysical) noise and human hearing ranges. This is based partly on the experience in the Gulf of Mexico where G&G activities and diving regularly occur.”

Money Talks

Dean Lambeth

According to a December 2013 report from the American Petroleum Institute, offshore oil and natural gas development in the Atlantic could generate upwards of 280,000 jobs and contribute up to $23.5 billion to the U.S. economy each year. Most of the benefits would be accrued in states along the East Coast.

North Carolina stands to reap billions from offshore drilling.

API estimates that the equivalent of four million barrels of oil and about 19.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas may be available in the mid-Atlantic, a large percentage of which include North Carolina, McGowan said.

“The resources are significant,” he said. “We’re using 30-year-old data for those numbers.”

Resource estimates for the Atlantic outer continental shelf include 3.3 billion barrels of oil and 31.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Updated surveys could lead to an increase in those figures, industry officials say. In 1987 the Minerals Management Service estimated about 9.5 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Recent seismic tests and exploratory drilling skyrocketed the figure in 2011 to an estimated 48.4 billion barrels of oil, according to the institute.

Money generated from seismic testing leases may help pay for beach re-nourishment projects, Lambeth said.

Controversy in Kure Beach

He attended a handful of seminars hosted by America’s Energy Forum, a lobbying group backed by the institute, last year. When the group sent him a letter asking for his support, he obliged. A majority of the Kure Beach Town Council approved of Lambeth’s decision in a vote during their Dec. 17 meeting.

As word of the town’s letter of support spread, Lambeth and the council began, “getting a lot of blowback from the environmental people,” he said. Lambeth said he has not reviewed the draft EIS.

Oceana stages a protest outside the U.S. Department of Interior in Washington. Photo: Oceana

“I don’t see where the seismic testing is going to hurt anything,” Lambeth said. “I still don’t understand all this hoopla from people who are against it. They’re talking about all these whales and dolphins getting killed. They have no proof that it hurts the fish.”

The board has scheduled a Jan. 27 meeting where two people – a representative of the oil and gas industry and an environmental spokesperson – will talk about seismic surveying.

“We’ll duke it out,” Lambeth said. “Both sides need to have all the facts and not he-said, she-said. My God, they better show me the environmental part of it. They better show me the facts.”

Surfrider is organizing a rally at the meeting, where the organization is encouraging as many people as possible to speak.

“One of our biggest concerns is that (Lambeth) signed this letter without taking any public comment on the issue,” Crouch said.

The town council’s Jan. 27 meeting is not a public hearing and the council will not make a decision following comments, Lambeth said.

“I’ve already made the decision,” he said.

The town meeting will be held roughly one month before BOEM is expected to release the final EIS in late February.

There will be a 30-day public comment period once the study is released. BOEM must wait a minimum of 30 days after the study’s release before a decision is rendered.

BOEM already has received applications from oil and gas companies to obtain permits to survey in the Atlantic, Gillette said.

“We can’t provide a timeline of when surveys may actually begin as each permit will undergo site-specific NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) evaluations and all other applicable consultations,” Gillette wrote in an email.

Applicants must also receive authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and from the National Marine Fisheries Service prior to surveying. Under the MMPA, surveyors must notify the public of the time and location prior to testing.

If the government allows surveying in the Atlantic, offshore drilling could begin as early as 2019 with he first oil and natural gas production starting in 2026, according to BOEM.

When legislation clearing the way for fracking in North Carolina’s Deep River basin first appeared it was part of an overhaul of state energy policy that also included a push to develop offshore development as well.

The final fracking bill, which became law last month over Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto, is stripped of the offshore language, but that doesn’t mean the end of efforts to spur exploration for oil and natural gas off our coast.

Although no legislation on offshore development became law in the last session of the N.C. General Assembly, there were several indications of where a Republican-led legislature might be headed. As with fracking, the twin themes pushing offshore exploration are jobs and energy independence.

Molly Diggins

One hint of the legislature’s direction is a leadership-sponsored N.C. Senate resolution on energy policy, proposed during the recent short session, that endorses offshore exploration. It cites work by a legislative subcommittee on Offshore Energy Exploration that says federal waters off North Carolina hold upwards of 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and that developing the resources would lead to 6,700 jobs, add $659 million to the state’s economy and yield nearly $500 million per year in state revenues.

Molly Diggins, state director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, said there is concern that with fracking legislation out of the way, the legislature will restart its push for offshore exploration.

The offshore issue was complicating the legislature’s drive to get fracking done, Diggins said. But bill’s predecessor, the 2011’s Energy Jobs Act, made clear early on the legislature’s intent for a new state energy policy. The bill promoted offshore oil and natural gas production. Perdue vetoed it.

“There’s seems to be a national ‘all of the above’ approach,” Diggins said. “(In North Carolina) it’s all of the below — any drilling for fossil fuels.”

The legislature is pursuing a risky approach, Diggins said, especially considering that the jobs talked about would take a long time to materialize.

“Drilling as a jobs program really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny,” Diggins said.

It would take 20 years for the industry to crank up, she said, and that’s only if the resources are worth the effort.

“It’s long been believed that North Carolina doesn’t have significant offshore resources,” she said.

Sam Pearsall of the Environmental Defense Fund said it’s unclear what the legislature might do in the coming year to promote offshore energy and uncertain as to what the state can do to influence federal policy that has so far kept exploration out of the Atlantic.

“These are federal lands and it’s a federal decision,” Pearsall said. “There’s been a fair bit of posturing with offshore oil development.”

Diggins and Pearsall expect the issue to come up during the gubernatorial election cycle, especially since Pat McCrory, the Republican candidate, has spoken in favor of opening up the Atlantic region to exploration.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s recently released five-year oil and gas leasing plan maintains roughly the same policy on Atlantic exploration it has since exploration halted three decades ago. The agency, which manages energy exploration and production in federal waters, won’t schedule any lease sales through 2016, the duration of the plan. Bureau officials want to allow surveys in the Atlantic starting next year to get a better understanding of where development might potentially happen.

The bureau closed the comment period on the survey’s environmental plan on July 2. The plan includes seismic and sonar tests in the Carolina Trough and other areas of potential off the N.C. coast. A public meeting in Wilmington on the plan drew hundreds of people, many expressing concern about impacts on marine mammals in the survey area.

John Filostrat, spokesperson for BOEM, said Ken Salazar, Interior secretary, is expected to make a decision on the testing plan in January.

Filostrat said the BOEM is interesting in developing new information on the ocean floor in areas like the Carolina Trough to get a more accurate picture of the resources.

“The last surveys in the mid-Atlantic were done 30-plus years ago,” he said.

The BOEM five-year plan cites the need to get a better idea of the location of potential development to head off jurisdictional disputes between states and conflicts with the Department of Defense, which wants to limit how much of the area could be developed.

The plan notes a range of support and concerns among the Atlantic coast states on offshore development. It also says that one of the key reasons leases were not considered was the lack of infrastructure, including spill response and called for long-term analysis and planning for the infrastructure to support exploration.

The state’s role in that planning has yet to take shape. The new State Mining and Energy Commission, which was created under the fracking bill, was given authority to regulate and assist in the development of the state’s oil and gas resources, but under the law its regulations on fracking would not apply to “oil and gas exploration and development in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the coastal sounds.”

That may bring some relief to environmentalists since the commission is already under fire for being heavily stacked with appointees friendly to the oil and gas industry.

In the months ahead state action on offshore exploration is likely to come from the new Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy, which was also created under the fracking legislation, and has broad oversight powers over the Mining and Energy Commission and all state and local energy policy making bodies.

Clock Ticking on Sea-Level Rise Bill

Perdue has yet to sign off on coastal policy legislation that includes controversial provisions on sea-level rise predictions.

The bill is one of a handful left on the governor’s desk since the legislature’s adjournment in early July. It is among a group of bills environmental groups have asked Perdue to veto.

Perdue spokesperson Greg Thomas said a decision has not been reached on what to do about the bill, which sets a four-year moratorium and spells out the rules for further study before the state adopts any new standard on the rate sea-level rise.

“The governor has until August 2,” Thomas said. “Right now, all we can say about it is the bill is under review.”

The legislation passed the House on July 2, the last day of the session, 68 to 43, a margin that’s one vote shy of what it would take to override a veto.