Saving Seafood

North Carolina: Cooper Warns Zinke of Lawsuit Over Drilling

February 6, 2018 — RALEIGH, N.C. — The federal government and Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration remain on course for a legal battle over the push to open the East Coast to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling.

After a weekend meeting with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Cooper said he had reiterated his request for an exemption similar to one given to Florida, telling Zinke the state would sue if the Trump administration moves ahead with oil and gas exploration off North Carolina’s coast. Cooper also called on residents to get involved and keep up the fight.

“I call on the citizens of North Carolina to be loud about this issue,” Cooper said during a press conference after the Saturday morning session with Zinke.

Cooper was joined in the discussion at the executive mansion in Raleigh by representatives of the coastal region, who he said conveyed concerns to Zinke about the potential risks to the coast’s unique environment and an economy based on tourism and fisheries.

“I think he heard loud and clear from a cross section of North Carolina that we do not want offshore oil and gas drilling off the coast of North Carolina,” Cooper said. “We’ve been saying since this summer ‘no way, not off our coast.’”

On Friday, Zinke met with South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who also asked for an exemption to the proposed leasing program. Since the announcement last summer that Atlantic Coast waters would be reopened to oil and gas leasing, states have been lining up to seek exemptions. The pressure grew in January when Zinke granted Florida an exemption on the grounds that the state’s economy was too heavily dependent on coastal tourism.

Cooper said North Carolina deserves the same exemption extended to Florida and said the state would take the federal government to court if it is not granted.

State Attorney General Josh Stein, who also attended the meeting, said Zinke told the group every governor on the East Coast is opposed to the program. Stein echoed the governor’s threat.

“If we are unsuccessful in convincing the secretary to exempt North Carolina from this offshore drilling program, we will take him to court to protect our coast, our coastal economy and our people,” Stein said.

Cooper also asked for the comment period on the Trump administration’s proposed five-year plan announced Jan. 4 that would open almost all U.S. offshore waters to seismic exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas to be open for an additional 60 days and that public hearings in Wilmington, Morehead City and Kill Devil Hills be added to the schedule. The only public meeting planned in North Carolina is set for Feb. 26 in Raleigh as an “open house” information session, not a public hearing.

“He seemed receptive to that,” Cooper said of the request.

Joining Cooper and Stein for the meeting with Zinke were Department of Environment Quality Secretary Michael Regan; Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon; Stan Riggs, coastal and marine geologist at East Carolina University; Nags Head Mayor Pro Tem Susie Walters; Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper; Dare County Commission chair Bob Woodard; New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple; Tom Kies, president of Carteret County Chamber of Commerce; and Capt. Dave Timpy, a retired Army Corps of Engineers specialist in coastal engineering who runs a charter fishing business in Wilmington.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

 

North Carolina governor seeks offshore drilling exemption in Zinke meeting

February 5, 2018 — North Carolina’s governor said he had a good conversation on Saturday with the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, regarding plans to expand drilling for gas and oil off the state’s coast.

Roy Cooper, a Democrat, wants the Republican administration to give him an exemption similar to that offered to the Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott.

Last month, Zinke told Scott Florida’s waters would remain closed under Donald Trump’s five-year plan, which would open 90% of the nation’s offshore reserves to development by private companies.

Interior officials later said Zinke’s promise was not a formal plan and the proposal was still under review.

At least 10 other governors from both parties have asked Zinke to remove their states from plans to expand offshore drilling from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific.

Henry McMaster, the Republican governor of South Carolina, had a meeting on Friday with Zinke, his staff reported. Zinke did not meet with reporters after either meeting.

Cooper said he spent an hour talking to Zinke, telling him drilling could cause unrecoverable damage to the state’s $3bn tourism and fishing industries.

“We told him there is no 100% safe method to drill for oil and gas off the coast, particularly in our area off of North Carolina that sees nor’easters, that sees hurricanes,” Cooper said.

“We don’t call it the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ for nothing, it would be catastrophic if there were to be an oil spill.

Read the full story at The Guardian

 

South Carolina: Gov. McMaster makes official request for South Carolina oil drilling exemption

January 17, 2018 — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has formally requested that federal officials take South Carolina off the list for oil and natural gas leases in the Atlantic Ocean.

This is after U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke unilaterally removed Florida from the 2019-2024 proposed plan for offshore drilling following a brief meeting with Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Jan. 9.

Zinke had announced on Jan. 4 that the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had opened 98 percent of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and gas resources in federal offshore areas available to consider for future exploration and development. Zinke said Florida is exempt because it is “unique and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic driver.”

On Jan. 10, McMaster stated during a press conference: “I am opposed to offshore drilling off the South Carolina shore. I am opposed to seismic testing off the South Carolina shore. Our tourism industry and our glorious natural resources particularly in the Lowcountry are beyond compare in the United States. They are the source of enormous economic growth and prosperity and we can’t take a chance with those resources, those industries and that economy. It’s just too important.”

On that same day, McMaster officially made the request to Zinke’s office for a meeting to discuss removing South Carolina from the list. McMaster did not respond to questions from the Georgetown Times concerning the request.

Members of a grassroots group called Stop Oil Drilling in the Atlantic, or SODA, based in Pawleys Island say they are excited about McMaster’s request. They are urging the public to contact McMaster and other U.S. elected officials to express their support for removing South Carolina from the list.

“We trust that the will of the people most impacted by this public decision will be taken very seriously and heard,” said SODA leader Rev. Jim Watkins. “That is why it is really important to get behind the governor and thank him and and urge him on.”

He also said, “I hope that the state legislature and public officials all across the state will have a united front to help us get removed from the plan. I think that the governor’s action should be a rallying point for not only public officials but everyone.”

Watkins stressed that the issue is not a partisan issue and drilling for oil and natural gas is opposed by many Republicans and Democrats. Governors of both parties from most East Coast states are opposed to offshore drilling, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Jew Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, according to the Associated Press.

Read the full story at South Strand News

 

Gloucester Times: United against offshore drilling

January 12, 2018 — If President Trump truly wants to open the nation’s coastline to drilling for oil and gas, he’ll have a battle on his hands. And in a rare moment of political unity, he’ll have to fight both Democrats and Republicans.

The administration’s plan, announced last week by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, would open 90 percent of the nation’s coastal waters to development by private companies.

Such a free-for-all could prove disastrous for the marine environment and the industries that rely on it, such as tourism and fishing. Those economies on the Gulf Coast are still struggling to recover after the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010, the largest in American history.

Locally, the president’s proposal has once again made a target of Gloucester’s fishing industry.

America’s oldest fishing port has spent the better part of four decades fighting off attempts to turn Georges Bank into a de facto oil field, and for good reason: It’s a spectacularly bad idea.

Located about 100 miles off the coast of Cape Ann, Georges Bank, home to species ranging from cod and haddock to lobster and scallops, has long been one of the world’s richest fishing grounds. Generations of Gloucestermen have worked the waters, a tradition that continues even today in the face of heavy regulation. Georges is as much a part of Gloucester as Main Street.

Read the full editorial at the Gloucester Times

 

South Jersey Times: Christie should fight hard to keep drilling ban

January 11, 2018 — With less than a week to go in office and part of his legacy on the line, Gov. Chris Christie has called out President Donald Trump over his administration’s unilateral call to open the entire East Coast to offshore energy drilling.

The possibility of drilling causing a spill despoiling the Atlantic Coast or otherwise ruining New Jersey’s tourism and fishing industries has long been a third rail of Garden State politics, uniting Democrats and Republicans alike. Past attempts to increase coastal drilling — and even President Barack Obama authorized them — generally had “opt-out” features for states, often won after protests from New Jersey lawmakers and governors.

The latest move by U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, with Trump’s apparent blessing, to open both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to more drilling has no specific carve-outs. A current drilling moratorium for the Atlantic coast was supposed to last until at least 2022.

With all due respect to most of the New Jersey elected officeholders who circled the wagons against the Zinke proposal, just as they had in the past: They have no juice with this president.

Read the full story at the South Jersey Times

 

Florida Is Exempted From Coastal Drilling. Other States Ask, ‘Why Not Us?’

January 11, 2018 — WASHINGTON — At 5:20 on Tuesday evening, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke tweeted a photo of himself at the Tallahassee airport with Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, announcing that he had decided, after meeting with Governor Scott, to exempt the state from a new Trump administration plan to open up most of the nation’s coastline to offshore oil drilling.

It was a sudden and unexpected change to a plan that President Trump had celebrated just five days before, and it took lawmakers and governors from both parties by surprise. It also gave Governor Scott, a Republican who is widely expected to run for the Senate this year, a clear political boost in that race. Florida lawmakers of both parties have long opposed offshore drilling, especially after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill sent tarballs to the shores of a state where the economy relies heavily on tourism. Mr. Zinke’s sudden flip-flop on Florida drilling allows Governor Scott to tout the decision as evidence of his influence with the White House.

Mr. Trump’s critics say the move highlights the president’s willingness to blatantly use the nation’s public lands and waters as political bargaining chips.

It also appears to illustrate the clumsiness with which the Trump administration drafts federal policies. By publicly putting forth the comprehensive new coastal drilling plan and then abruptly announcing a major change to it less than a week later, with little evident public or scientific review, the Interior Department appears to have opened itself to a wave of legal challenges.

Within hours of Mr. Zinke’s tweet, governors in other coastal states began demanding their own drilling exemptions.

Read the full story at the New York Times