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Divisions Form Over Offshore Gas, Oil Drilling

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 February 2006, 18:00 CST

By Peter Hardin, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

Feb. 15--WASHINGTON -- The debate over drilling for oil and natural gas off Virginia's coast is heating up, with conflicting plans reflecting division in the U.S. Capitol and in Richmond.

Suddenly it seems that everyone is drawing a line in the water over oil and natural gas.

These key players are drafting lines:

--The Bush administration announced last week it wants to study oil and natural gas development in a 6.1-million-acre area off Virginia's coast, with an eye to possible drilling, in response to "discussion" from Virginia's legislature.

--In the General Assembly, Republican-led legislation has advanced in committees.

The legislation would support lifting a federal moratorium and support future natural-gas development off Virginia's coast.

--Florida's U.S. senators, from opposing parties, have introduced a bill allowing some drilling in disputed areas of the eastern Gulf of Mexico while extending to 2020 existing coastal protections elsewhere, including off Virginia's coast.

--Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, proposed last week opening a far larger area of the Gulf of Mexico for development. He set a hearing for tomorrow.

The conflicting bill by Republican Sen. Mel Martinez and Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida may be discussed then.

Though much of the upcoming fight appears to center on the Gulf of Mexico, the planned oil and natural-gas study area starting 3 miles off Virginia's coast also is a focal point.

"I'm obviously very excited" by the plans of Bush's Interior Department, said state Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach.

His bill, advancing in the General Assembly, would support lifting the federal moratorium on drilling off Virginia's coast.

The offshore Virginia study is part of a five-year draft federal plan for 2007 to 2012. "If you're not included in the study, you're not going to be included for five years," Wagner said.

The draft plan eyes making areas off Virginia's coast available for development in 2011. Federal officials say Virginia's congressional delegation would first have to work to lift the moratorium.

Richard Charter, a northern California environmentalist, said he fears a move starting in Virginia's legislature -- if accepted by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine -- would have far broader implications for the Atlantic coast.

The Virginia coastline "is like the first domino, in a whole series of dominos that would then fall" to offshore drilling, cautioned Charter, a leader of the National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition.

"You [in Virginia] have become the confrontation zone between 25 years of coastal protection for the Atlantic coast and an agenda that's been pursued very deliberately by special interests in the oil and gas industry," he said.

Charter and the Sierra Club back the Floridians' bill that would extend coastal protections to 2020. Virginia's Sierra Club chapter opposes offshore drilling on the grounds that it poses a threat to ocean and coastal life.

Kaine, meanwhile, "is supportive of undertaking a preliminary geological survey to see what resources are under the ocean floor," said his spokesman, Kevin Hall. Once that is known, "we can have a discussion about whether or not to allow outright drilling," Hall said.

The draft federal plan for offshore drilling -- which also sets its sights on a Gulf of Mexico area 100 miles from the Florida coast -- was described by federal officials as sensitive to the environment.

"With sharply higher energy prices buffeting both families and businesses, we want to be sure that we fully consider the environmentally sensitive development of the vast domestic oil and gas resources off our coasts," said Johnnie Burton, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service.

Leading Virginia Republicans in Congress have spoken favorably about letting states explore offshore for natural gas or oil. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., introduced a bill last year permitting that.

While the planned federal study area off Virginia starts only 3 miles from its coast, Wagner's measure in the state Senate envisions a buffer zone extending 30 miles from the coast.

That's a lot farther than the distance someone on the coast can see -- which is 12 to 14 miles at most, Wagner said.

In January, then-Secretary of Commerce and Trade Michael J. Schewel of Virginia reported that if an effort began now, it would take at least a decade before Virginia's outer continental shelf yielded natural gas.

The mid-Atlantic offshore area, extending from Delaware to North Carolina's southern border, has an estimated "net social value" of about $6.7 billion, according to the Minerals Management Service.

That number is an estimate of net economic benefits and environmental costs tied to recovering all potential oil and natural gas resources. No estimate limited to the region off Virginia's coast was available.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

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