U.S. begins to pursue drilling off Virginia coast

[DogPoundPup]

Source: The State / McClatchy Newspaper

WASHINGTON -- Months after Bush and Congress lifted bans on offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean, the federal government moved Thursday to pursue oil and natural gas exploration off the coast of Virginia.

The Interior Department began a public comment period on drafting an environmental-impact statement on offshore drilling. The environmental work is the first step in opening 2.9 million acres of waters to a lease sale scheduled for 2011. The area under consideration is at least 50 miles offshore.

The agency's move probably will be followed closely by environmental groups and states in the Southeast, along with business groups that are eager for more energy development.

"In some ways, North Carolina is the next place after Virginia that . . . the federal government would like to go," said Michael Gravitz, an oceans advocate for Environment America, a coalition of state organizations. "Virginia is the first chink in the Atlantic Coast armor."

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/nationalpolitics/story/589177.h...

[badgervan]

1. Fools

The law of averages says that those beautiful Virginia beaches will eventually be ruined... along with those of neighboring states. Instead of putting all of our resources into alternative fuel development... we get the greedy, shortsighted and irresponsible opening up of off-coast drilling for oil. Same deal with the Big Three auto makers; they'll go bankrupt before they will change to authentic fuel-efficient transportation.
Fools to the left... fools to the right. Idiots.

[shanti]

2. can obama stop this?

??

[investintrains]

3. Bush regime is not "the US"

it always bothers me to hear the unelected Bush regime referred
to as "The US".

[Drum]

4. "Virginia is the first chink in the Atlantic Coast armor."

Sinister.

[nebenaube]

5. well

fuck it, the Chesapeake is almost dead anyway.

[Blue_Tires]

6. the gas price spike over the spring/summer enabled

the "drill here, drill now, pay less" crowd to snowball a LOT of support locally....

the real tragic part is if you ever bring up the prospect of installing wind power turbines offshore, THEN the conservatives get all NIMBY and start questioning the projected benefits....

[Javaman]

11. the real amusing part of all this is...

because the price of oil has dropped all the "drill baby drill" BS falls flat in the face of rising costs to drill. The enormous costs that are accrued by oil companies to drill 10k-15k feet down into the sediment is no longer cost effective with oil at sub 60 bucks a barrel.

the amount of energy in to reap what ever energy out becomes a moot point. The rig rental cost for test drilling, the actual construction of new rigs, etc, is fine when oil is $150 a barrel.

but, and here is the kicker, it just goes to show one how little oil is left in the world. They are still willing to risk the expense at trying to drill into these hard to find areas when the price of oil is so low, then that should be a warning sign to the world, but meh, when did a human in greed ever heed the red flags of fate? LOL

Like you said, wind, tidal and even algae farms would do so much more then wasting money drilling.

soon NIMBY's will go the way of the dinosaur once they can't fuel up their car or turn on their lights.

[malletgirl02]

7. I had no idea this was happening

Is there anything Virginians can do to possibly stop this?

[underpants]

9. I think Kaine is stringing them along

Having sort of followed this the oil expansion folks have dropped their wish to (I am not kidding) explore IN the Chesapeake Bay. I would guess that it sounded so bad that even they realized that wouldn't help them.

This is also a last minute push through by the Bushies

Kaine has sort of supported maybe looking into future investigation of the possibility of drilling
AS the article notes this is decades away. By that time we aren't going to need to go through the time and expense (R&D will be paid for by taxpayers-they don't know how to drill out there yet) of drilling off the Va. coast.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. "So you refused to vote for McCain, huh?"

Next up: Indiana gets strip-mined. And we've got our eye on you North Carolina...

[Javaman]

10. LOLOLOLOLOL

so when will that first drop of oil be produced? 10 to 12 years???

LOLOLOLOL

by that point, the few thousand barrels this well may produce will be a fart in the wind.

Oh wait, we use 25% of the worlds oil resources with 5% of the worlds pop, and yet only produce 2-4% of our own oil. it already is a fart in the wind!!!

LOLOLOLOL

fucking idiots.

[FarCenter]

12. Is there any oil off-shore Virginia?

Most places where there is oil off-shore, it is an extension of some on-shore oil bearing formation.

I don't know of any oil wells east of the Allegheny mountains, although there are some off-shore in Canada. But Nova Scotia at least has some coal on-shore.

[sofa king]

13. Lame.

That insignificant trickle of oil is going to be sold at top dollar to the Chinese--in about ten years. This is a national security issue, and the Republicans hate America.