Offshore drilling for oil and gas could bring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to Virginia, and help secure the nation's energy future, speakers at an industry-sponsored forum said this afternoon.
"More energy equals more jobs for Virginia," Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said. "That should be priority No. 1 for everybody across the commonwealth of Virginia."
Bolling spoke to about 20 people at an offshore oil and gas forum in Richmond sponsored by the Virginia Manufacturers Association and the Southeast Energy Alliance.
The federal government is considering leasing areas in the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast for oil and gas development.
The lease sale would be held no earlier than 2011, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service. The potential lease area covers about 2.9 million acres, located at least 50 miles offshore.
"There's no way the United States can drill its way out of our energy problems," environmentalist Glen Besa with the Sierra Club's Virginia chapter said in an interview yesterday.
"The longer we foster our dependence on oil," Besa said, "the more we'll be dependent on foreign sources, many of which are hostile to the United States."
Look for more of this story in tomorrow's Richmond Times-Dispatch
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