NC environmentalists alarmed after Trump order bans offshore drilling in nearby states
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday in Florida imposing a 10-year moratorium on offshore drilling in waters from Florida to South Carolina, leaving North Carolina open to potential activity.
Under the order, leases of areas along the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina for the purposes of offshore exploration or development are prohibited between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2032. What is not clear is why the order omits North Carolina and Virginia, where residents have been vocally opposed to offshore drilling, often citing the potential impact to fisheries and coastal tourism.
Sierra Weaver, a senior attorney in the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office, said, “There has been no explanation for why to stop at the South Carolina line, and based on what we know, there is no basis for that decision at all. We all know there is every bit as much worth protecting here in North Carolina as below.”
This week’s executive order is raising alarms among North Carolina environmental groups and the coastal communities that have almost unanimously stood in opposition to any proposal that would see exploration. The issue has largely been dormant since a March 2019 court decision.
Erin Carey, the director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club’s North Carolina chapter, said, “I am very concerned, our allies are very concerned because we thought maybe we had a stay until after the (November 2020) election. ... I think that this is definitely a signal that they’re still thinking about the plan, they’re still considering where they’re going to open and that political favors are not out of the question.”
In January 2018, the federal Department of the Interior announced a proposed five-year plan that would have drastically expanded the areas open for oil and gas leasing, including opening the North Carolina coast. A public hearing in Raleigh saw significant opposition to the plan, including many who had traveled from the coast to speak.
Then the plan stopped, halted by a March 2019 court decision that reinstated Obama-era protections in areas off of the coast of Alaska. There has been no second iteration of the offshore drilling plan, a step that was originally supposed to take place in late 2018 or early 2019.
“We have always been nervous that that plan will resurface if and when the Trump administration maintains office so we’ve always been waiting for what happens after November,” Weaver said.
At least 44 North Carolina municipalities have passed resolutions opposing seismic exploration or offshore drilling, with many opposing both activities.
In a prepared statement, Ford Porter, a spokesman for Gov. Roy Cooper, said, “The Governor has been clear about seismic testing and offshore drilling — not off our coast. ... The Trump administration’s recent actions to ensure Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina are protected from offshore drilling has no basis in reality if it doesn’t also include North Carolina.”
Diane Hoskins, the campaign director for Oceana Action, an environmental group, said in a prepared statement that the entire offshore plan should be withdrawn. Hoskins also noted that it was the Trump Administration’s 2018 proposal that put the states on the map for offshore drilling.
“What Trump deems good enough for Florida should be good enough for North Carolina. Our coasts don’t need political ploys,” Hoskins wrote.
While the draft offshore plan has been in limbo for more than a year, efforts to open the North Carolina coast to seismic testing have moved ahead. The effort would see companies with arrays of airguns using blasts somewhere around 250 decibels to determine how much oil and gas is buried under the ocean.
In June 2019, the N.C. Division of Coastal Management announced that it had found seismic testing inconsistent with the state’s coastal policies. Testing would likely harm fish habitats, fisheries and the coastal economy, the division wrote in a response to applicant WesternGeco.
This June, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration announced that in an appeal, it had decided in favor of one of the companies proposing seismic testing off of North Carolina.
N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein filed a federal lawsuit in August seeking to block NOAA’s seismic testing ruling.
In an interview with The News & Observer on Wednesday, Stein said he is reviewing this week’s executive order to determine if there is a potential legal claim against it.
“North Carolina’s beautiful coast (features) tourism and fishing generating billions of dollars in economic activity. Our people are as deserving of protection as those who live in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida and this discrimination against North Carolina has no basis in law. I can’t know why (Trump) did what he did, but it’s certainly irrational in law,” Stein said.
Some, including Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, questioned whether the order was political, with states that have Republican governors receiving a moratorium and those with Democratic governors like North Carolina and Virginia remaining open to drilling.
The Sierra Club’s Carey, who called the order “shocking,” noted that all three of the states with a moratorium are led by Republicans, with Florida representing a potential swing state in the upcoming presidential election.
“It doesn’t look like he has any intention of including any states north of South Carolina,” Carey said. “It is very convenient timing in a state that he needs to win.”
This reporting is financially supported by Report for America/GroundTruth Project and The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, a component fund of the North Carolina Community Foundation. The News & Observer maintains full editorial control of the work. To support the future of this reporting, subscribe or donate.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 5:30 AM.