Offshore Drilling

At the Oriental Shrine Club in Greensboro last week McCrory told the audience:

“We will create jobs as a government by getting into the energy-exploration business, both offshore and underground.”

Which never should have been dropped in the first place:

But the White House, in its latest five-year plan proposal, also intends to place all of the East Coast off limits to exploration, reports The New York Times. The ban on West Coast drilling also would be maintained.

And this is one good reason why these decisions simply cannot be left up to individual states:

Cross-posted from the Institute for Southern Studies.

With Congress taking action in recent weeks to expand and speed up offshore oil and gas drilling, President Obama used his weekly radio address this past Saturday to weigh in on the matter. Unfortunately, he used his platform to promote a persistent myth about expanded offshore drilling: that it would bring down prices at the gas pump.

First, a little uninformed misinformation:

Acknowledging the timing was ironic, a trio of Republican state senators this morning held a news conference to announce they had filed a bill to open up the North Carolina coast to energy drilling. Today is the one-year anniversary of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf Coast.

“But what we did learn from this disaster is we learned from our mistakes,” Rucho said. “The industry has already found ways to make sure that oil exploration and production can be done in a very safe manner.”

Apparently Bob has his Tivo set to record all of BP's tv commercials. (addendum: Read the diary below this for more BP stuff) Okay, let's take a look at the bill itself:

Administration reverses position on drilling in the Atlantic:

The Obama administration reversed course Wednesday and said it wouldn't allow drilling off the Atlantic coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Florida, citing safety concerns after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Environmental groups, meanwhile, characterized the decision as long overdue. "We have been opposed for years to drilling in the Atlantic, which holds meager oil reserves yet provides billions in fishing and tourism revenue to coastal communities," said Deborah Murray, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, based in in Charlottesville, Va.

This is fantastic news, but the President shouldn't have gone down this road in the first place. Especially if this is the primary reason why:

If you were to take this statement at face value:

“I understand the concerns of people; environmentally we have to live in a real world,” said Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. “Until we can develop the other fuels, we will have to depend on fossil fuels.”

you would think she actually supports alternatives to fossil fuels, but we're just not there yet. Well, you would be wrong:

Voted NO on investing in homegrown biofuel.

Just got this heads-up in the (e)mail:

We have some breaking good news on North Carolina's response to the Gulf oil disaster and an urgent request for you to contact your state representative in the next 24 hours.

A House committee in the state legislature just passed a bill (S836) which would:

- ensure that oil companies like BP are fully liable for damage to our state from offshore oil spills, including if oil from the Gulf of Mexico disaster hits NC beaches,

__________ is to blame for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Insert your answer in the blank. If you answered "too many restrictions on Big Oil companies," you might be the only person in the country who agrees with Sen. Richard Burr. In this shocking audio clip, Burr squarely lays the blame for the Gulf oil spill on limitations on offshore drilling. According to Burr's logic, the disaster in the Gulf could have been avoided, if only the federal government had given oil companies more freedom to drill where they pleased.

As he tries to spray dispersants on the growing concerns over offshore drilling:

The pictures of oil from the BP gusher reaching the shores of Louisiana tear at my heart. But the images haven't changed my mind about offshore oil exploration. I'm still a "Drill, baby, drill" guy.

I've previously written about the need to do a full cost accounting of alternative energy such as solar, wind and biomass. Now it's time to apply the same standard to oil. As with every other source of energy, I want to know the true cost of oil exploration and extraction, and that includes the cost of safety measures to prevent catastrophic blowouts.

No, you don't, Ricky. You say you want to know, but that's only to make your other wants seem reasonable.

Show of hands: How many of you knew about this?

The prospects of hitting a trove of oil or gas (considered more likely) off our coastline are slim, perhaps one in a hundred, notes Alexander, a former Charlotte News writer, and Lazell. In 1950, they write, Exxon drilled to a depth of 10,000 feet off Cape Hatteras and found nothing. "More than 50 wells have been drilled both onshore and in coastal waters controlled by the state," including three wells in Dare and Hyde in 1965. "Neither oil nor gas was found in any of these operations," they added.

Related story: The world's largest red herring was discovered swimming in the political waters of North Carolina...