NC’s Tillis, Burr push case for offshore drilling

WASHINGTON North Carolina’s two Republican U.S. senators stoked the already controversial Keystone XL pipeline debate when they pushed to add a measure that would also open up the Atlantic coast to offshore drilling.

U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr introduced an amendment Thursday to the Senate Keystone pipeline proposal that would allow drilling up the coast from Florida to Delaware in search of oil and gas resources. In return, the states would receive a share of oil and gas revenue from the energy companies.

The amendment is likely to be nothing more than a political statement. President Barack Obama has promised to veto the Keystone pipeline bill. And Obama already has approved seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Atlantic, which many environmentalists see as a precursor to eventual drilling. Obama is expected to make an announcement on the issue soon.

Those factors haven’t stopped critics from seizing on the North Carolina Republicans’ proposal. Environmental advocacy groups see it as an attack on the country’s national and state treasures, including North Carolina’s fragile barrier islands.

Claire Douglass, a campaign director for the advocacy group Oceana, considers the revenue-sharing money that states would receive as akin to hush money. The companies pay it, she said, so government leaders won’t say anything about what’s being done off the coast.

“It’s basically bribe money to garner support,” Douglass said. “Usually when you’re paying off states – it’s probably not good. You don’t put these kind of bribes in place if it’s in the best interest of the local economies.”

Companies are already drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, where the first phase of revenue sharing is in place with four states, including Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Legacy of the BP spill

The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 people and spilled more than 200 million gallons of oil into the gulf is still fresh in the minds of many coastal communities.

Chris Jackson, manager of the Aussie Island Surf Shop in Wilmington remembers watching on television as oil washed up on the beaches along the Gulf Coast tourist towns. He wondered what would happen to the local tourism and lifestyle if something similar happened in North Carolina.

“It was terrible,” said Jackson, who has managed the shop for the past 15 years. “We live here. We love to enjoy the beach ourselves. And it’s going to mess it up for our sons and daughters. It would be bad, for sure.”

North Carolina attracts millions of visitors each year who spend money in hotels, restaurants and shops. In 2013, the state’s coastal region hosted about 11.6 million visitors, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. They spent roughly $4 billion that year.

It’s not just about the money, said Dave Rogers, state director for Environment North Carolina, an environmental advocacy group. He said an array of marine life from sea turtles to migratory birds to whales would be impacted. “Putting all that at risk … seems like a backwards idea,” Rogers said. “For us, it’s the 21st century. We got ways to get energy sources that don’t pollute our environment and never run out.”

Response capacity improves

The BP disaster focused attention on the risk of offshore drilling..

Offshore drilling is safer than it was four years ago, according to the leaders of a bipartisan White House commission created to investigate the disaster.

Last year, on the fourth anniversary, Democrat Bob Graham, a former U.S. senator and Florida governor, and Republican William Reilly, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, criticized Congress for failing to take action to reduce the risk of another accident. But they also reported that the industry “has substantially improved its capacity to respond” to ruptured wells. They said the Gulf Coast economy had also improved, noting the seafood industry had rebounded to pre-spill levels and that tourism revenues along the Gulf coast were setting records.

Tillis is taking on the controversial subject as one of his first legislative pushes as a new senator. In his first floor speech, on Thursday, Tillis said he wanted to fulfill a campaign promise to find opportunities for economic growth. The proposal, he said, would create jobs for North Carolina residents and put the country on a better track to energy independence.

“When utility bills and gas prices increase, hard-working Americans face hardship and struggle to make ends meet,” Tillis said from the Senate floor. “We need to make that easier and lift the burden on those hard-working taxpayers.”

He cited an energy industry study that found offshore drilling in the Atlantic could generate $4 billion in state revenue and support more than 55,000 jobs in North Carolina.

Gov. Pat McCrory, in a statement, praised the Tillis and Burr proposal as “a step in the right direction to help get North Carolina into the energy business.” McCrory, a Republican and longtime Duke Energy executive, has helped lead a group of mostly Republican leaders who support launching oil and gas exploration off the East Coast. But it’s not only Republicans. Last year, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, joined the push.

If the country wants to remain a world leader in oil and gas production, it has to be committed to looking for resources in new areas, said Brian Straessle, spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute.

“And the Atlantic coast is an area where there’s a lot of interest both from industry and folks in the states along the coast and policy makers,” he said.