Governor McCrory raises North Carolina profile in offshore drilling push

NEWSOBSERVER ^ | 12/04/2013 | John Murawski

[tightoil67]

DURHAM — North Carolina is among a group of coastal states pressing the Obama administration to end a two-decade moratorium and allow offshore exploration for oil and natural gas. Advocates here are hoping to get North Carolina included on the federal list of ocean waters to be set aside for future exploration.

Gov. Pat McCrory was recently made vice chairman of the two-year-old Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, giving the state a higher profile in offshore drilling. McCrory described his involvement at an energy conference Wednesday organized by the N.C. Chamber, the state's influential business lobbying organization.

Offshore drilling in U.S. waters is dependent on federal permitting, a process that got underway several years ago and stalled in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico three years ago.

North Carolina is in its strongest position in years to promote offshore energy exploration, which remains highly controversial, especially in tourism-dependent, coastal regions. The state legislature is controlled by a business-friendly Republican legislature and McCrory has expressed strong support for offshore energy exploration.

“We have got to get into the exploration business in North Carolina,” McCrory, a former Charlotte mayor who previously worked for Duke Energy, said Wednesday. “We're reeling from sitting on the sidelines for the past decade, which we should have never done.”

[tightoil67]

McCrory said he continues to promote his “all of the above” approach to energy, endorsing such options as shale gas exploration in the state's midsection as well as offshore wind farms. But he also said the time is approaching for a hard look at the costs of subsidizing renewable energy resources such as solar and wind, with the ultimate goal of phasing out those subsidies.

[Red Badger]

Good luck with that................

No drilling now, no drilling forever!..............

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[thackney]

Study: Atlantic drilling could give economy $23.5B boost
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3099520/posts
Posted on 12/8/2013