Yet another in a growing list of editorial pages has weighed in against the Obama/Tillis/McCrory plan to open up the coastline of North Carolina to offshore oil and gas drilling. This morning it’s Raleigh’s News & Observer. Here’s the excellent conclusion:
“President Obama’s motivation for supporting offshore drilling is complicated. The clearest reason appears to be that he’s offering to open the Atlantic waters to gain support for his other push to close off from drilling millions of acres in Alaska and the waters off its coast.
He’s also trying to balance his pro-environment stances – opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline and support for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions – with the need for plentiful energy supplies.
Given the reality of global warming and the memory of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill into the Gulf of Mexico, the time for such balance is past. The United States should be building to an energy future based on renewable sources without environmental hazards. For now, the best hope is that explorers find there isn’t enough oil and gas off the Atlantic coast to merit the trouble of extracting it.”
Read the entire editorial by clicking here.