Sierra Club: McDonnell misses ‘big picture’ on drilling
Staff Report
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The Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club today issued its response to Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell’s recent letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar regarding Virginia offshore drilling and lease sale.
“In his rush to accelerate Virginia offshore drilling, Mr. McDonnell is not considering the big picture,” said Glen Besa, director of the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club.
McDonnell continues to base his economic argument for drilling on a 2005 analysis done by former Old Dominion University president Dr. James V. Koch. In several recent statements to the press, Dr. Koch has revealed the deep inadequacies of his analysis.
“I did not have time to parse Virginia’s situation in detail. I examined the experiences of Louisiana and a Canadian province and extrapolated” said Dr. Koch to the Wall Street Journal. The figures “were very rough estimates” and “the topic would benefit from a detailed, thorough study” to include environmental costs.
“McDonnell’s economic arguments not only rely on this so-called ‘study’ but also unrealistically assume that revenue sharing would be extended to Virginia”, said Besa. “The feds are very unlikely to share $653-$790 billion in future revenue that constitutes the third largest source of Federal revenue benefitting all 50 states.”
“We would be pleased to work with Mr. McDonnell to bring offshore wind to Virginia that would be a major stimulus for new jobs, but if he wants to drill for oil and gas, we will oppose him,” added Besa.
The Sierra Club letter to Interior Secretary Salazar also points out Mr. McDonnell’s disregard for thorough and exhaustive study of the environmental impacts of offshore drilling on the Commonwealth.
“A recent D.C. Court of Appeals decision vacating the 2007-2012 drilling program was based on a failure to adequately assess the environmental sensitivity of our offshore areas”, continued Besa. “Thus in his quest to keep Virginia enrolled in this flawed Bush-era program, Mr. McDonnell further reveals his true agenda of playing partisan politics and political posturing, choosing terribly flawed economic arguments over sound environmental study.”
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Knowing McDonnell, this doesn’t surprise me. He’s doing exaclty what we knew he would, right?.
“offshore wind to Virginia would be a major stimulus for new jobs, but if he wants to drill for oil and gas, we will oppose him,”
What a stupid argument, oil and gas exploration and production will create exponentially more jobs than wind energy. Why does it have to be either or? Aren’t both viable options that will help stimulate the struggling economy.
I’m continually and sadly amazed at the hypocrisy of the Sierra Club. They would support wind power projects off the coast of Virginia. Good. Now go tell the Kennedys and their rich neighbors to support windmills off of Nantucket, Cape Cod, and Hyannisport. Good luck.
The price of oil is rising and the price of gasoline is too, and it is not going down. The Red Chinese are buying up oil exploration and production contracts from Nigeria to Iran to Venezuela, thus squeezing the rest of the world out.
Even little Red Cuba is allowing Red China to drill off their coast. Has the Sierra Club asked Castro whether he had done sufficient environmental studies before sealing the deal? Doubt it!
Time to get real, SC. Our economy runs on oil, from oil, gasoline, pharmaceuticals, lubricants to plastics/resins. We aren’t going to change this for a long time, and right now Americans needs jobs, products, and OIL.
Please take your Priuses, Smart Cars (tiny coffins on wheels), and windmills (which I like), and shove them where the sun don’t shine (No solar-panels there, my friend).
We live in a real world, and it is time to get real. Modern off-shore oil production has been made safer, more efficient, and more do-able.
To paraphrase the drug-dealer/Black Panther killer H.Rap Brown, “Drill, baby, drill.”