The Obama administration had already telegraphed that it was likely to impose what amounts to a ban on oil-and-natural-gas drilling off the Atlantic coastline and also in the Arctic waters near Alaska. At a moment when the world is looking to reduce its dependency on fossil fuels, neither the plan to expand drilling in the seafood-laden waters off the tourist beaches of the American South nor the...
The real costs of expanding offshore drilling
Environmentalists certainly won a big battle when the Obama administration reversed course earlier this year and nixed a proposal to allow offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. That flawed plan that would have risked tourism, fishing and other vital activities up and down the Eastern Seaboard. But it wasn’t the same thing as winning the war on fossil fuels. For all the progress that...
The South rises in opposition to offshore drilling
Something truly remarkable is happening in the American South. The states that I’m talking about are so-called “red states” — some of the most politically conservative geography in these United States. They are places with Republican governors and mostly Republican state legislatures, where environmental regulations are typically scorned and policy on oil exploration has...