Last week, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper took a strong stand against drilling off the Atlantic coast.
I am proud to see my governor be a leader in the fight to protect our coasts from the threat of offshore drilling, even though it feels like déjà vu to be having this fight once again. Just seven months ago, the Obama administration finalized its five-year plan for oil and gas development off our coasts, following a multi-year process during which millions of Americans weighed in. The original draft of the plan would have opened up the Atlantic coast to drilling, but thanks to tens of thousands of citizens up and down the Eastern Seaboard speaking out, the administration changed course and the final plan (for the years 2017-2022) put the Atlantic off-limits to drilling.
However, in a move that was disappointing but not surprising, Donald Trump’s administration recently began the process of redoing the five-year plan, with the goal of expanding drilling along our coasts, potentially also undoing permanent protections for the Atlantic and Arctic.
There’s no doubt that this would be a disaster for North Carolina and other states along the coast. Fishing, tourism, and recreation support roughly 51,000 jobs and generate nearly $2.2 billion in GDP in North Carolina alone. A clean and healthy coast is vital to our economy and to the families who come to enjoy our beautiful beaches. The routine pollution from offshore drilling rigs along our coast, along with the constant threat of a devastating oil spill, would threaten our fragile ecosystems and our thriving coastal communities - not to mention the threat increased extraction of dirty fossil fuels poses to our climate.
To make matters worse, before drilling even begins, the wildlife along our coast would be subjected to deafening sonic blasts when oil and gas companies use seismic blasting to search the Atlantic for fossil fuels. These tests use giant underwater air horns to blast sound into the ocean for months on end -- at volumes loud enough to shatter a human eardrum. If they go through with these tests, millions of marine mammals may suffer and die.
Governor Cooper is not alone in his opposition to this terrible plan. South Carolina’s governor, Republican Henry McMaster, also recently announced his opposition to seismic blasting, the first step towards drilling. And as of last month, 127 East Coast communities, including more than 30 here in North Carolina, have formally opposed offshore drilling and/or seismic airgun blasting. Republicans and Democrats up and down the coast can agree that our communities, our beaches, and our climate should remain shielded from the dangers of offshore drilling.
Expanding drilling off our shores would put our coastal communities’ health, economic well-being, and environment at risk, and continue to ignore the impacts of climate change across the nation.
Last year, millions of Americans said, loud and clear, that we do not want offshore drilling off our coasts. We protected the Atlantic coast from drilling once and we can do it again, but only if we speak up and tell the Trump administration that our coasts are not for sale.