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Erik Curren | Offshore Drilling: Risky Job Killer

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Recently, gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell and other Republicans in Virginia (including my opponent) have been saying that we should ask the federal government for permission to let oil companies explore for oil and natural gas off of our coast, an area that has been off-limits to drilling for decades. Supporters say that oil off the coast could help America get off of foreign oil and lower our energy costs.

What drilling supporters fail to realize is that oil companies don’t need more exploration to see that there’s very little oil off the coast of Virginia — experts already know that drilling off Virginia’s coast would produce at most a six-month supply of oil at current national rates of consumption. Once this oil goes on the international market, each driver in Virginia could see only a couple of fill-ups worth. This oil wouldn’t come online for decades, and when it did, chances are it would save drivers only a few pennies per gallon in the year 2030.

More importantly, opening this protected area to drilling could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and endanger our national security.

 

Threat to Virginia Jobs

More than 200,000 people work in tourism across Virginia, an industry powered by visitors to Virginia Beach. In the best scenarios, coastal drilling is not compatible with beach tourism. Drilling for oil and gas requires more than oil derricks miles off the coast. It also requires a complex infrastructure on shore of port facilities, tankers, oil refineries, pipelines, smokestacks, rail and truck terminals, and waste treatment plants.

If you’ve ever seen the massive industrial complex required to support coastal drilling on a significant scale, you know that it’s not a good neighbor for a resort hotel or beach cabanas.

And that’s assuming nothing goes wrong.

Should there be an oil spill, hundreds of miles of prime beach real estate could be turned in hours into a toxic cleanup site.

In addition, commercial and recreational fishing would also be under threat, endangering more than 13,000 full- and part-time jobs.

 

Threat to National Security

In addition, drilling off of Virginia’s coast would endanger naval operations. As part of the military’s overall plans for America’s coastal defense, the Navy requires unfettered access to the Virginia CAPES Operating Area. “The VACAPES Range Complex represents an essential combination of land, sea and air space that provides realistic training areas for Navy personnel,” according to Navy report from 2006.

Another Navy report from 2005 makes clear the importance of access to the area for national security:

Our commanders have told us that unrestricted use of critical sea ranges, warning areas, and military airspace operating areas is essential to naval exercises, pilot training, and live ordnance and weapon system testing and evaluation. Drilling rigs and related structures, because of their height and size would be hazardous to low flying drone aircraft and missiles and military exercises would be hazardous to operations associated with oil and gas resources development.

Both the Navy and NASA have opposed plans to drill off of Virginia’s coast. For the chance to save a few cents a gallon in 2030, is it worth second-guessing our military commanders?

 

Creating Jobs with Real Energy Solutions

America is indeed facing unprecedented challenges in getting the energy we need in the next twenty years. But ideas like drilling off the coast are just dangerous distractions from real solutions to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and control high energy costs in the future. These solutions are near at hand, if we would only focus on developing them. And the best part is, they would create jobs — not put them at risk.

Let’s start by conserving energy.

The United States uses twice the energy of Europe to achieve a similar standard of living. There are many ways we can increase our energy efficiency while preserving and even improving our quality of life. Increasing transportation choice through building more trains while encouraging denser development and walkable communities will help us to use less oil to get around, while also fighting pollution and creating American jobs.

Then, let’s start selling more cars, buses, and trucks that get better gas mileage or don’t use gas at all. Hybrid and all-electric vehicles are becoming cheaper and more widely available every year. Smart government policy could help industry to ramp up production, turn clean vehicles from a novelty into the norm, and create American jobs.

 

Not Worth the Risk

Energy may be relatively cheap now, but once the economy bounces back, prices may go back up — and drilling off of Virginia’s coast will do nothing to lower energy costs in the near term. High energy costs could cost us even more jobs and threaten any recovery. That’s another risk of getting distracted by schemes that would take us backward instead of moving us into a 21st century energy economy that is clean and prosperous.

For a couple of gas tanks per driver twenty years from now, it’s not worth putting our beach tourism, fisheries, and naval operations in danger while risking tens of thousands of jobs today — especially in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Depression. We need to save and create jobs, not gamble them away on poorly planned schemes for little probable gain.

There are already plenty of places in the country to drill for oil; unused areas that the industry already has access to could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil each day, nearly double current domestic production.

In Virginia, the small potential reward of off-shore drilling just isn’t worth the huge risk. Instead, let’s invest in conservation and clean energy, creating lucrative opportunities for entrepreneurs and thousands of good jobs to help pull themselves up and ensure a future of clean, affordable, domestic energy.

 

Erik Curren is the Democratic Party nominee in the 20th House District.

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