Raleigh--The U.S. House
of Representatives narrowly voted yesterday to allow oil and gas drilling off North Carolina’s coast and coasts across America. The House passed the Deep Ocean Energy Resources
Act (H.R.4761), ending the 25 year bipartisan moratorium that has kept in check
expansion of offshore drilling. Having upheld the moratorium in a May 18
vote on the FY 2007 Interior Appropriations bill, the House has now reversed
itself.
Several of North Carolina’s
Representatives voted to continue protecting North
Carolina’s coast. Reps. Butterfield, Etheridge,
Price, McIntyre, Miller and Watt voted against ending the moratorium while
Reps. Jones, Foxx, Coble, Hayes, Myrick and Taylor all
voted to open our coast to oil and natural gas drilling.
“We applaud the efforts of many of our Representatives to protect
our precious beaches from the devastating impacts of offshore drilling,” says
Christine Wunsche, Environment North Carolina’s Clean Water Attorney. “We are
counting on Sens. Dole and Burr to continue the fight to preserve our shoreline
by stopping yet another attack on North
Carolina’s coast.”
In May, the House rejected opening our Nation’s coasts to natural
gas drilling as close as three miles offshore. The current bill could result in
both gas and oil drilling as close as three miles offshore if a state
approves of it. States would have to jump through multiple hoops every five
years to stop drilling 50 miles off their coast from happening. In addition,
the bill drills a $3 billion hole in the federal treasury in the first ten
years by setting up a program for sharing oil and gas revenues with coastal
states if they approve drilling.
The bill offers no solutions to our country’s energy problems and
continues an emphasis on drilling rather than efficiency and new renewable
sources of energy.
“Offshore drilling is
not the way to achieve energy independence, it only opens our beaches up to
pollution,” continues Wunsche. “We need real solutions such as saving energy by
improving the gas mileage of our cars and SUVs and developing clean, renewable
energy.”
