Low oil prices and local resistance have stalled plans to drill off the southeastern coast, for now.
August 11, 2017 — Last month, in one of the North Carolina’s most popular beach towns, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced his opposition to offshore drilling.
“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,” Cooper said from Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. “As governor, I’m here to speak out and take action against it. I can sum it up in four words: not off our coast.”
When oil drilling off the southeast coast was proposed by President Barack Obama in 2015, Cooper’s press conference may have stood apart from the bipartisan consensus that supported the idea.
But now, two years later, the Democratic governor’s stance is less noteworthy. More than 125 municipalities along the coast have formally opposed drilling or seismic testing, and just one coastal governor in the Southeast still supports it.
What changed? Not local opinion, says Sierra Weaver, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
“The local communities have always been against offshore drilling, it’s really a matter of them getting educated about what’s at stake,” Weaver says. “What has shifted is interest at the state level or the political level.”