Webb calls for provisions to include Virginia in offshore energy bill
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., today called for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to incorporate his Virginia Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Energy Production Act in pending offshore energy legislation this week.
“Outer Continental Shelf production has strong support among Virginians and their political leadership,” Webb wrote the Committee’s Chairman and Ranking Member. “I look forward to working with you to ensure that all of Virginia’s OCS energy resources are developed in a timely fashion, through a fair distribution of revenues between the federal and state government, and in an environmentally sound manner.”
In his letter, Webb also urged the Committee to expand revenue sharing provisions beyond oil and gas, to include marine renewable technologies. He also emphasized the importance of creating a more equitable OCS map for Virginia, and ensuring those resources are included in the Department of Interior’s energy production plan.
Webb has long been a proponent of opening Virginia’s outer continental shelf to oil and natural gas exploration as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing our nation’s energy needs. In 2008, he cosponsored legislation with then-Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) to allow the Commonwealth to conduct energy exploration activities in the outer continental shelf with revenue-sharing provisions. Earlier this month Senators Webb and Mark Warner introduced the Virginia Outer Continental Shelf Energy Production Act of 2011.
The Gulf Oil Spill: A Virginia Perspective
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
There’s only a “slim chance” that oil from the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana will end up washing ashore on beaches in Virginia, according to a James Madison University professor who is a Gulf Stream expert.
“The Gulf Stream, as it travels eastward, reaches its closest proximity to the coast in South Florida. As it flows northward from there, it starts to flow eastward. So by the time you get to, let’s say, the Outer Banks of North Carolina, it’s about 40 miles from the coast. When you get to Virginia Beach, it’s about 70 miles from the coast. So there’s only a slim chance that it would reach the beaches of Virginia, unless a storm were to come in and blow it toward the coast,” said Stan Ulanski, professor of meteorology in the department of geography and environmental sciences at JMU and author of The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic. Read more
Environmental group praises delay on offshore drilling
Edited by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The U.S. Minerals Management Service announced today that it is postponing indefinitely the public-comment period and the public hearings that were scheduled in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina in the coming weeks on the proposed sale for oil and gas drilling off Virginia’s shore. Read more
Ken Plum: Lessons from tragedies
Posted by afp on May 27, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.kenplum.com
There was undoubtedly a feeling of elation among the 2,228 passengers and crew members as they boarded the Titanic ocean liner for her maiden voyage April 10, 1912. There was no way to know that by April 15 only 705 of them would survive her sinking. After all, the Titanic had been described as a first class ocean liner that was the largest luxury liner on the open seas with a special construction of water-tight compartments that made her invincible and in the word of an official of White Star Line that owned her, “unsinkable.” Ironically, his comment was made the day after the Titanic sank. Read more
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