Lt. Gov. Bolling pushes offshore drilling for oil and gas
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To drill or not to drill
Hear from proponents and opponents of offshore drilling. Part of the Atlantic off Virginia's coast may see exploratory drilling in 2011. From an industry panel on drilling held in Richmond Tuesday,...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 yesterday.
"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, at least 50 miles offshore.
The Minerals Management Service estimates the area may contain 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Over a 10-year period, Bolling said, developing an offshore energy industry in Virginia could:
- create more than 25,000 jobs;
- spur nearly $8 billion worth of investment;
- yield $644 million in payroll; and
- produce $271 million in state and local taxes.
Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine backs only exploratory drilling for natural gas. By law, however, the federal government cannot restrict the development to natural gas alone.
"There's no way the United States can drill its way out of our energy problems," environmentalist Glen Besa of 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."
But, said David Holt, president of the Houston-based Consumer Energy Alliance, "there is no alternative energy solution that will meet the [nation's energy] demand for the foreseeable future."
"When you've got an oil industry," Besa also argued, "you're going to have oil spills."
By reducing the need to ship the oil and gas in tankers and barges, a Virginia petroleum field would "actually reduce the threat to the environment," state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, told the forum.
Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or
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Reader Reactions
Wow. Finally some sensible talk coming from a Richmond or Washington.
It has been months since we have seen that.
Maybe America is finally starting to fight it’s way through the Obama cloud that is looming over this nation.
Besa is a typical Sierra Club dingaling. He hasn’t figured out that no one is saying we can drill our way out of our energy needs. He refuses to acknowledge that everyone (except the enviroidiots like himself) is saying drilling is a short-term solution while we develop the long-term solution of alternative fuels and alternative sources.
Apparently he missed the CAT 5 hurricane that went through the Gulf oil fields in 2005 and nary a drop of oil was spilled. He’s just whining because it’s oil. Not a credible source.
doglady… it’s not the industry people saying there are no near-term alternative solutions—ITS THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!!!!! Look at the DOE website.
The fact is wind farms generate so little energy that just to get enough up to power a 150-unit housing subdivision would take 8 years. That’s according to the wind farm people. Alternative sources like wind will be available in mass quantities someday. Today they aren’t. Today and for at least the next 10 years these are not sustainable solutions.
The fact is we have BILLIONS of gallons of domestic oil waiting to be safely tapped in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, in the shale of the Rocky Mountains, in ANWR and elsewhere. Yes, safely tapped. Any thought that offshore oil drilling isn’t safe were washed away with Hurricane Katrina. These are sustainable solutions that can be done within the next three years if the liberals will get off their butts and think of the nation before the enviroidiots.
When’s the last time you heard of an oil spill from an offshore rig? I’ve never heard of a disaster caused by a spill from a rig. In fact a study found that only 2% of the oil floating in the ocean today is from oil rig leaks or spills. 63% of the oil floating on the ocean is due to naturally occurring seepage. Offshore drilling is safe and the technology for preventing environmental disasters is already in place. Think of the money Virginia could collect in royalties from drilling. Louisiana gets $1.5 BILLION per year from offshore drilling. I seem to remember that Virginia has a little bit of a budget problem and that $1.5 billion could really help.
Obtaining energy from wind is expensive and inefficient. We already have the technology for recovering oil, so let’s use it now while we develop technology to ween ourselves off it. Gas powered cars, power plants, etc are not going to magically disappear in the next 4 or 10 or even 20 years.
Domestic oil production is what we need to focus on. Regardless of our near and long term solutions for transportation. The fact is that while Europe and ourselves transition to oil free transportation the rest of the world will lag. Those countries could be future customers that bring in tons of revenue for the state and nation. As far as bulk electric power is concerned the Sierra Club is not an honest colaborator and niether is Obama. There is a lot more to their pie in the sky than meets the eye. The cost-per-watt of wind and solar energy is exponentially more expensive than natural gas and nuclear power. Who do you wonder will absorb that cost? That cost can be reduced with smart grid technology but only slightly. However the initial cost of updating the grid is in the trillions. Domestic oil production may be a way to fund such a grid upgrade.
It’s not that we can’t; its that the alternatives aren’t viable solutions in the near term. I certainly think we should make the shift to alternative fuels/energy. HOWEVER, shifting our resources to domestic production in the near term, while keeping tax dollars in the state, creating jobs, and not sending our hard earned money overseas should be a high priority as well. The argument that petroleum companies can’t operate without spills is ridiculous. They don’t want to loose what they are drilling for. After Katrina, the wasn’t a single environmentally hazardous spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Not too mention, if you’ve ever been fishing in the gulf, you know the best place to is next to the oil rigs because they create habitats in the ocean.
Of course the Houston official would say there are no alternatives that are viable for the forseeable future! The continuing effort to say no to viable alternatives become a self-fulfilling prophecy: we can’t, we can’t, so we don’t, we don’t. There is plenty of wind energy off AND ON Virginia’s coast, which will also generate jobs, clean energy, no spills, etc etc.
Let’s stop looking at what can’t be done and work on sustainable solutions.
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