Opinion: Offshore Drilling Has No Place on the Atlantic Coast — Then or Now

In today’s blog, we are pleased to share a recent op-ed published in the Coastal Review

It’s a story Carolinians already know: The Trump administration is once again pushing to expand offshore drilling along America’s coasts. It claims to have a mandate, insisting that “America spoke” in last November’s election and that those results endorse the administration’s energy agenda and “national energy emergency” claims. When America last had a real chance to weigh in on offshore drilling during the first Trump term, it spoke loudly and clearly in opposition. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Carolinas, where communities, local leaders and even Republican lawmakers stood up and firmly said, “No.”

In 2018, the first Trump administration proposed opening up vast stretches of the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling, including waters off North and South Carolina. That plan ran headfirst into a wall of resistance built by residents from coastal towns and inland cities who came together to protect their way of life. Environmental groups, fishermen, small business owners and tourism industry leaders formed unlikely alliances to stop the drilling. More than a hundred coastal communities passed formal resolutions against Atlantic oil drilling. Those unlikely alliances bloomed into rallies, marches and protests for months on end. Their message was simple: Environmentally and economically, the risks were too high.

That opposition was echoed by elected officials, regardless of their side of the aisle. Republican governors and lawmakers broke ranks with the administration to defend their states’ coastlines. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and South Carolina’s Henry McMaster both called for their states to be excluded from the drilling plan. Coastal communities passed resolutions opposing drilling off their shores. It was a rare display of bipartisan unity, driven by the urgent need to protect local economies, natural heritage and public safety.

The high stakes haven’t changed. The Atlantic Ocean is home to fragile marine ecosystems including species like endangered North Atlantic right whales, sea turtles and countless fish species. Those species and ecosystems are under constant pressure from overfishing, climate change, as well as plastic, chemical and noise pollution. Habitat destruction from coastal development, bottom trawling and dredging further disrupts vital ecosystems. The oil industry could very well be the tipping point for our Atlantic species.

The damage doesn’t stop at the drill site. Seismic testing — the method used to locate oil beneath the ocean floor — blasts powerful sound waves through the water, disorienting and sometimes killing marine animals. Infrastructure to support offshore drilling brings onshore pollution, industrialization of coastal areas, and heightened risk of oil spills. And the closer the drilling moves to shore, the greater the danger to beaches, estuaries, as well as the tourism and fishing industries that rely on clean water and healthy ecosystems. Additionally, due to the proximity of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, spilled oil could rapidly travel thousands of miles, creating widespread ecological damage that would be incredibly difficult to mitigate. That’s thousands of miles of chances for oil to get on and inside the bodies of wildlife, leading to everything from hypothermia to ulcers and a gruesome death.

Now, the first public comment period is open in the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, which the Department of the Interior will use to create a process for selling leases for drilling off our coasts. The people of North and South Carolina stood up to offshore drilling once before, and we must do it again: Submit comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and demand that our coast be kept free from new drilling. Offshore drilling has had no place on the Atlantic Coast before, and it has no place here now. America didn’t ask for oil rigs off its beaches — and the Carolinas are once again ready to lead the fight to keep them out.