Oil Spill
We have these gorgeous beaches for Virginians and tourists alike.
They mean fun, income, jobs, you know, prosperity.
Who would want to mess that up?
We also have a naval military presence in Virginia concerned about using the waters off our Atlantic coast.
Would anyone want to compromise our military mission?
How about both of our United States Senators from Virginia?
Get outa here, really? Absolutely!
Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine want us to allow the oil and gas folk to “drill, baby, drill,” unconcerned that that what that really means, as we learned from the Gulf Oil spills, is “spill, baby, spill.”
Does Virginia need that to ruin our coast-line?
Why do we elect these guys as “Democrats” when they talk “enviro” but want to drill off shore Virginia?
Just watch their oleaginous pitch for this dirty fossil fuel industry in this infomercial, in which they are selling out the Commonwealth of Virginia –http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iig5Ykf3uKg&feature=player_embedded#t=0s .
If you got a chance to watch it, you’d especially like the term Senator Kaine used, that we had finally found a “sweet spot” for drilling. What is he thinking about when he says “sweet spot”?
Why do these Senators think it’s proof that they are doing the right thing if it’s the case that our Republican Governor supports it? We know our Governor is irretrievably lost to fossil fuel exploration, no matter the environmental risk.
Both our Senators thanked the Virginia delegation for supporting them but I read a report that Congressman Jim Moran does not support the idea.
We’ll find out soon for sure who does support the idea – if any other Dems do and whether all the Republicans agree with our Senators – particularly those congressional members who represent the districts bordering our Atlantic shore line.
But no matter who supports it, that endorsement doesn’t end the inquiry whether we should do it or not, not when you consider what’s at risk, rather than the distorting effect on public policy of the oil industry’s generous contributions, and pressure that “confuses” the “clear thinking” of our elected representatives.
This latest initiative by our Senators is especially aggravating, when we have a wind tunnel off our coast that, by all expert accounts, could supply real clean renewable power, and lots of it. Virginia has done studies confirming this fact, and that’s what we should do instead offshore – and we should keep in mind how cheap that wind energy is becoming – http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/06/solar-pv-module-prices-have-fallen-80-since-2008-wind-turbines-29/
The right answer to our Senators was the Sierra Club critique in response to their initiative.
Glen Besa, with the Sierra Club, said, “As we saw with the Gulf oil disaster, oil spills decimate tourism and fishing industries. In Virginia, that means risking over $2.5 billion and over 100,000 jobs in industries that depend on healthy ocean and Chesapeake Bay waters and clean beaches.”
“It’s a risk that remains real,” Besa said, “as large spills continue to occur around the world and as Congress has yet to pass a single law strengthening federal oversight of offshore oi and gas development.”
“It is disappointing that so many Virginian politicians of both parties seem willing to jeopardize our strong coastal tourism and fisheries industries for a policy of drill everywhere and burn it all now that ignores environmental climate and national security concerns,” said Besa.
It sure is “disappointing” – and that’s a kindly way to characterize what our Senators propose to do to us.
But it’s business as usual in the Old Dominion where oil money talks more than the common sense of being responsible stewards of our environment and of our existing industry and jobs.
Shame on these guys!
Now we can only hope, if their legislation gets voted favorably out of the various Committees and out of Congress somehow, and actually makes the President’s desk for signing, that it is vetoed instead.