Photo Credit: jeremycg
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said at a hearing in front of the House Committee on Natural Resources that a proposed 50-mile “buffer zone,” supported by President Obama, is too restrictive to the oil industry, and that it should be lowered to 30 miles. ThinkProgress reports:
The coastal communities that would be closest to offshore drilling activity in North Carolina are registering a different opinion. The governments of 16 of the state’s coastal cities and towns have passed resolutions opposing offshore oil exploration and development activities, as have the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce and the Dare County, North Carolina, Tourism Board. In March, a federal hearing on Atlantic drilling in Kill Devil Hills drew what a Department of Interior spokeswoman called the largest crowd in the ocean energy agency’s history, the majority of whom opposed offshore oil development.
Emilie Swearingen, a town commissioner from Kure Beach, North Carolina that also testified at Wednesday’s congressional hearing, expressed strong opposition to offshore drilling, and voiced her town’s concerns that an oil spill off their shores would wreck the region’s fishing and tourism-driven economy.
“There is no place for this on the coast of North Carolina,” she said at the hearing.
Given that an investigation recently revealed that the Louisiana government and the U.S. Coast Guard allowed an oil company to cover up the Gulf’s 8th-largest oil spill ever for over 10 years, maybe Swearingen’s concern is well-placed.
Investigation reveals that LA government, Coast Guard allowed an oil company to cover up one of the biggest oil spills in American waters
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