In a major reversal, the Obama administration said Tuesday it will bar oil drilling off America’s Atlantic Coast, a move cheered by environmentalists and consistent with the president’s aggressive steps to combat climate change.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the decision “protects the Atlantic for future generations.” She said the administration had listened to thousands of people in coastal communities from Florida to New England who said, “Now is not the time to start leasing off the Atlantic Coast.”
However, business groups and most Republicans criticized it as another example of what they call executive overreach.
Despite a surge in oil and natural gas production in the past seven years that has helped push gasoline prices below $2 a gallon, Republicans and industry groups have criticized Obama for imposing what they say are unnecessary regulations on drilling, especially on federal lands. Most of the drilling boom has occurred on state and private lands and in the Gulf of Mexico, long the center of U.S. offshore oil production.
The decision reverses a proposal made last year in which the administration floated a plan that would have opened up a broad swath of the Atlantic Coast to drilling. That January 2015 proposal would have opened up sites more than 50 miles off Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia to oil drilling no earlier than 2021.
President Barack Obama, in his final year in office, is working to build an environmental legacy that includes a global agreement to curb climate change and an ambitious plan to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. Obama also has imposed stricter limits on smog-causing pollution linked to asthma and has rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
The proposal on Atlantic drilling is likely to become an issue in the 2016 presidential campaign. Both Democratic candidates oppose it, while Republicans vow to expand drilling.
The plan announced Tuesday covers potential lease sales from 2017 to 2022 and calls for leasing 10 areas in the Gulf and three off the Alaska coast.
A coalition of groups that oppose Atlantic drilling had organized protests and petitions in southeastern and mid-Atlantic states, often running into opposition from governors and other political leaders. Republican governors in North and South Carolina back drilling off their states’ coasts, as does the Democratic governor of Virginia. The state’s two Democratic senators also support drilling.
“President Obama has taken a giant step for our oceans, for coastal economies and for mitigating climate change,” said Jacqueline Savitz, vice president of Oceana, an environmental group. “This is a victory for people over politics and shows the importance of old-fashioned grass-roots organizing.”
The oil and gas industry has pushed for Atlantic drilling and pledged that exploration would be done safely, with lessons applied from the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tuesday’s decision “appeases extremists who seek to stop oil and natural gas production” in the U.S., said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the nation’s largest oil and gas lobbying group. The plan will increase energy costs for Americans and close the door for years on efforts to create new jobs and boost energy security, he said.
The Defense Department has said Atlantic offshore drilling could hurt military maneuvers and interfere with missile tests the Navy relies on to protect the East Coast. The Pentagon submitted a report to Interior that identified locations in Virginia and other states where military readiness programs would conflict with oil and gas activities, said spokesman Matthew Allen.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who supports offshore drilling, said he was surprised at the Pentagon’s objections, which were not raised when the draft proposal was submitted last year.
The Pentagon “has been relatively quiet during this public debate and has never shared their objections with me before,” said Kaine, a former Virginia governor who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he was extremely disappointed by the decision, which he said effectively ends debate over offshore drilling before it even starts.
Obama found an unlikely ally in Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., a former governor who opposes Atlantic drilling and led a bipartisan effort to stop it.
“This is fantastic news for the coast of South Carolina,” Sanford said. “Residents along our coast should be proud of the way they united on this issue and sent a compelling message to Washington.”
Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C. whose district includes Myrtle Beach, the heart of the state’s $19 billion tourism industry, said the decision was not surprising. “As more and more recoverable oil has been located onshore due to advancing technology” such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, “tapping new reserves in the Atlantic has become less and less feasible,” Rice said.
The Interior Department estimates there are about 2.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil on the Atlantic’s outer continental shelf and 26.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Energy industry experts say the reserves may be far greater.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I am sick of climate change as an excuse for stupidity. Since when does mankind control nature? I wish that the average American would remember the little science that they had been taught in school. The Sun is the largest body in our Solar System and all planets revolve around it in an orbit. Jupiter is 360 times the size of Earth and is 460 millions miles away from the Sun with a mass less than 1000th that of the Sun. Still Jupiter is a slave to the Sun almost 5 times as far away and how is it some how that we on Earth have taken over and made such a powerful statement? The Sun and its activity is the control on Earths climate and there is not a single thing that man can do too change this fact. However, it is possible for politicians to lie and use our climate as an excuse to limit the freedom of people. To enslave the human race to governments that are run by fallible, mortal, mean spirited, despots thirsting for power and control over all aspects of our lives so that they can wield an axe at our necks with impunity and reckless abandon. They do not believe in God and so desire to act in place of God here on Earth. For one person I say NO, I will not cow tow to those who want be to live a servile life and knee to them upon demand. Its not going to happen!
Dana: Wake up and smell the “Harp”!!!!…. Man/the cabal has been controlling the weather for YEARS! They have the technology and have built ways to control the weather ALL OVER THE WORLD. Who do you think made the drought in Texas a few years ago more recently caused the drought in California! They have bee the cause of earthquakes, hurricanes everywhere. GLOBAL WARMING has been getting the blame for everything when 80 or 90% of it has been caused by NASTY, NASTY people trying to to destroy this beautiful planet of ours as well as the majority of the population, as you basically said, because THEY feel that they have the right. Not to mention that the smaller the population is, the easier it is to CONTROL US! Have you ever heard of “chemtrails”? If not, look it up on Google and/or You Tube. It’s all right there. Mother Earth/Gaia soil has been seeded from above with chemicals to ruin her. Then, Monsanto has been doing their major part to help destroy the soil. From all of the food “by-products” that we have been consuming, it’s a wonder any of are still able to stand up-right.But, things are changing for the good. Big pharma and all of the others are LOSING! THANK GOD and the “boots on the ground”. If you get on Facebook and you read or see any subjects relating to these subjects, you might want to take a second look at them. If they say that Monsanto, and others, are trying to kill us, believe it.
Namaste.
The only pollution on this earth comes from the mouth of Obama. Perhaps they should drill a hole in his brain, let all the crap out and perhaps, just perhaps he might make sense in his last months in office. Global warming is a hoax as far as I’m concerned. By the way GOD is on the Throne and in Control. The Almighty can do whatever he wants when he wants. After all he did create the Universe and all that affects it.
“President Barack Obama, in his final year in office, is working to build an environmental legacy that includes…” destroying America’s future and helping funnel American money to countries that hate us.
It was noted in the story that exploration would not begin until at least 2021. While we are currently enjoying cheap fuel prices, the low prices will probably be gone by time 2021 comes around. Considering the time it takes to find oil and begin drilling this is more about crippling America’s future than anything else.
It should also be pointed out that foreign companies can set up off-shore in international waters and pump all the oil they can get. Those international explorers will not be paying taxes in the U.S. or abiding by U.S. laws. Once again we see the actions of a president more eager to pander to his extremist base than to do what is best for the country.