Days after proposing to ban oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the U.S. government is opening development leases for a large swath of offshore territory between Virginia and Georgia.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico took place just weeks after President Obama first expressed support for Atlantic Coast leasing in 2010. Now, “environmental groups see this revisiting of the plans as a case of ‘oil spill amnesia,’” Climate Progress reports. “They argue that the technology and regulations have not advanced significantly in the five years since the Deepwater Horizon spill, the fallout from which continues in economic recovery and prolonged legal battles over fines and compensation.”
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“The South-Atlantic has never been home to oil production,” Southern Environmental Law Center Sierra B. Weaver tells Phillips.
“When exploratory drilling was proposed off of North Carolina in the 1980s, the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred and plans were shelved because we didn’t want that risk here. In 2010 after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, the Obama Administration cancelled a lease sale off Virginia because it was also too risky. That risk hasn’t changed.”
