WILMINGTON, N.C. – A North Carolina panel exploring energy available off the state’s coast hears from the public about the choices ahead.

The Offshore Energy Exploration Study Committee meets on Tuesday in Wilmington. The panel created by the General Assembly earlier this year holds a public comment session on the University of North Carolina at Wilmington campus.

The committee’s interim report filed in May said there may be a significant amount of oil and gas deposits in federal waters under the Outer Continental Shelf off North Carolina.

The panel said North Carolina also could produce a signficant part of its energy by harnassing offshore wind, especially north of Cape Hatteras.

The committee’s final recommendations are due next May.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan said she is not opposed to drilling for oil or natural gas off the North Carolina coast if that is what the state decides to do.

Winston-Salem Journal Editorial

The Interior Department has issued a detailed proposal for oil and gas drilling off both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts – including the fragile, already-threatened North Carolina coast. President Obama should scrap the whole plan and concentrate on making the country more energy independent, a theme he stressed again Monday. State leaders should let him know just how bad drilling would be for North Carolina.

There’s been talk for years about drilling off the North Carolina coast. Most of the state’s top leaders have resisted such proposals, fearing that drilling could hurt the tourism this state increasingly depends upon.

But when gas prices shot up to record highs last year, some of our elected leaders, like their counterparts nationwide, relaxed their resistance.

The Interior Department issued its proposal in the last days of the Bush administration, which had pushed for more drilling off America’s coasts. The draft plan would allow drilling from New England to Florida and off the California coast, The Associated Press reported last week. These areas were recently declared off limits by Congress.

The N.C. legislature announced last week the formation of a committee to study the effects of drilling off our coast. We can’t imagine a scenario in which the economic benefits of such a plan could outweigh the damage to the environment and scenery – and, consequently, tourism. Overdevelopment has already done enough damage.

Drilling rigs would require nearby refineries and storage facilities, and create lots of traffic between the rigs and refineries. The rigs would threaten the environment, especially if one was knocked over in a hurricane.

With our Outer Banks jutting right out into the path of so many storms, that danger would be very real.
Finally, it’s estimated that more drilling off American shores wouldn’t produce enough oil to fuel our cars for any significant length of time. The time, effort and money for more drilling would be much better spent developing mass-transportation systems, alternative-energy programs and new fuels for cars. That strategy could finally break our addiction to oil, whether foreign or domestic.

By all indications, the Obama administration will be more prudent about the use of precious natural resources than the Bush administration. Ken Salazar, the new Interior secretary, indicated to The Associated Press last week that he likely will be receptive to scaling back his department’s proposal for more oil drilling.
Our elected leaders should let Salazar and the president know that oil drilling off North Carolina is a bad idea.

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina legislative leaders will form a committee to study whether offshore drilling is feasible off the coast.
 
Senate leader Marc Basnight said Thursday he remains opposed to drilling to explore for oil and natural gas reserves. Basnight is a powerful Democrat from coastal Dare County.

But Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney have agreed to create a legislative panel to look at environmental concerns and what the state can do proactively on the matter.

Congress has allowed a moratorium on drilling to expire. The federal government has since started taking public comment on drilling off Virginia’s coast.

Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue has been opposed to drilling. But her campaign said she would be open to the idea if a team of scientists said it was safe.

About 69 percent of North Carolina residents support drilling off the coast, according to a poll by Elon University.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Gov. Mike Easley wants any final bill in Congress expanding offshore oil exploration to give states like North Carolina control over who can drill.

Easley wrote to the state’s congressional delegation Wednesday asking it to support legislation that would give leasing rights to individual states, not oil companies.

The Democratic governor says states are best suited to decide whether to allow for drilling to protect their citizens and economic security.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that would open waters 50 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to oil and natural gas development – if adjacent states agree to go along. The states wouldn’t get royalties from energy production.
 
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where changes are likely.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Both candidates for U.S. Senate in North Carolina raced Wednesday to declare their support for offshore drilling, just three months after the two opposed the idea because of concerns it might harm the environment and tourism.

Disputing an ad that started airing Wednesday, paid for by Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a spokeswoman said Democratic challenger Kay Hagan supports exploration for oil off the coast of North Carolina as a way to lower gas prices. Colleen Flanagan said Hagan backs such drilling as part of a package of proposals that includes investments in alternative energy.

“We need to increase the amount of gas we can get to working families,” Flanagan said. “Working families can’t continue to sit by and pay gas prices close to $4 a gallon while half of Washington says you have to drill and half of Washington says you can’t drill.”

Both Hagan and Dole were previously vocal opponents of drilling.

Dole has long supported a federal moratorium on such exploration off the North Carolina coast, saying it was necessary to protect the state tourism industry and marine habitat. She changed her mind in June, also citing high gas prices.

At that time, Hagan slammed Dole for the decision, saying “empty rhetoric and false promises won’t lower gas prices.” But a month later, Hagan softened her stance by signing on to a bipartisan proposal offered by a small group of senators that included drilling, saying she was willing to approve such exploration as part of a compromise.

Flanagan said Wednesday that Hagan supports the idea of drilling as a solution and called Dole’s ad a “lie.”
 
“Not only has Hagan been against offshore drilling, but she is against energy exploration in Alaska, California and the west coast,” said Dole spokesman Dan McLagan. “She’s said it time and time again, in interview after interview. I don’t think Hagan can keep track of what she has flip-flopped on anymore.”

The plan Hagan supports would open up spots in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and allow Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to have the choice of drilling off their coasts; and Flanagan said Wednesday that Hagan would consider other drilling proposals.
 
Dole supports giving the states the option of doing offshore work and has also advocated for alternative energies.

Drilling has become one of the top issues this election year. Polls indicate that the American people widely support the additional exploration, something that has triggered some politicians to shift their positions.

But the federal government has expressed doubts on whether new offshore exploration would affect gas prices.

While the Interior Department estimates that opening the remaining U.S. coastal waters to drilling could potentially provide access to 18 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas beneath the 574 million acres. Of that, about 3.8 billion barrels of oil and 37 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are suspected to be off the Atlantic coast.

Yet experts believe it could take years before production begins.

A report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration last year said leasing of the areas likely wouldn’t begin until 2012 for the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the plans wouldn’t significantly affect production or prices before 2030. The report indicated that the new oil would do little to move prices after that.
 
Dole supports giving the states the option of doing offshore work and has also advocated for alternative energies. The plan Hagan supports would open up spots in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and allow Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to have the choice of drilling off their coasts.

Gov. Mike Easley has said he sees a “very poor” chance of that happening in North Carolina, but the two candidates vying to replace him now have shown support for drilling.