BIG PUSH FOR OFFSHORE DRILLING COULD MEAN BIG BUCKS FOR SOUTH CAROLINA
|| By FITSNEWS || Offshore oil rigs could be coming soon to the South Carolina coastline – assuming the U.S. Department of the Interior’s upcoming “five-year plan” for drilling leases is authorized. The agency’s proposed plan – released last week – would allow limited offshore drilling from Virginia to the Georgia/ Florida state line.
Of course it would simultaneously exempt 12 million acres in Alaska from drilling – part of U.S. president Barack Obama‘s apparent effort to appease both the business and environmental lobbies in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan is leading the push for expanded offshore drilling, which he claims “could mean billions of dollars in economic activity and revenue for South Carolina.”
“North America is poised to become the world’s leading source of energy production, and by producing energy in the Atlantic we can strengthen America’s energy security and lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern sources of oil,” Duncan said. “Prosperity shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and I hope that the Obama Administration will continue to heed the wishes of the citizens of South Carolina and fully open up these areas for energy production and exploration.”
We agree …
Unfortunately, offshore drilling faces opposition from radical environmentalists in the Palmetto State, most notably Conservation Voters of S.C. leader Ann Timberlake.
“Drilling is simply not worth the risk to our coastal communities like Georgetown, Charleston and Beaufort,” Timberlake told The Greenville News this week.
Really?
Where is Timberlake’s math on that claim? Because last time we checked, the state’s economy stood to reap an estimated $3 billion a year from the industry – of which roughly $850 million would flow into state coffers.
In fact that’s the deal Duncan is reportedly working on right now …
What math does Timberlake have to counter that?
(Crickets).
This website has a very simple energy policy: We support whatever keeps the lights on at the lowest possible price for consumers. If expanded offshore drilling helps to do that, then in the words of our good friend Rick Manning at Americans for Limited Government – “Drill, Baby. Drill.”
45 comments
The BP spill cost 30+- billion to clean up. Actual cost to Taxpayers is unknown. Revenue and taxes associated with reduced tourism is significant,. If such a spill happened on SC Coast, SC legislators would easily be bought off and agree to have taxpayers foot that bill So, yes, I can see how this could be a bad deal, even if your numbers are correct..
And it is still not clean. Best I remember, all the wealthy beach home owners and resort owners, bitched and moaned about having to look at offshore windmills if they were erected. Can’t wait for them to have to look a oil rigs and tar balls on the beach.
Tar balls maybe but unless you can see 75 miles (past the curvature of the Earth) you won’t see these rigs. Many will be looking for natural gas which has minimal if any environmental impact. Sanford and Scott are proposing law to exclude the rigs within 25 miles of shore.
http://www.islandpacket.com/2014/09/01/3288754/sc-policymakers-push-ahead-for.html
The thing is Colonel – push ’em 100 miles offshore, and the cost goes up above the $50 a barrel point, and the Saudis sell at $38.
The water is relatively shallow off South Carolina for more than 200 miles, far shallower than the U.S. Gulf (the Deepwater Horizon was in 5,000 feet, our shelf is less than 1,000)
I’m really asking the question because I’m google lazy right now and figured you might know, but how far is the actual “sovereignty” rights of the US territorially speaking into the ocean?
Is it Maritame EEZ limits? (24 miles)
*Maritime
I just looked it up, apparently as of 82′ it’s now 200 nautical miles.
I like the idea of having the Ryder Cup at Kaiwa again, only this time, there’s tar balls on the beach, and an oil-slick waste area. And I much prefer sheen-crab-soup to she-crab-soup. And just thing, that sweetwater sea marsh grass – will be so much easier to weave with a nice coat of Carolina Heavy Crude. And let’s not forget the currents in summer usually run northeast – make sure that a spill in Hilton Head gets Edisto, Folly, Sullivans, right on up to Pawley. I think we need like 1,000 wells offshore. And not far off shore, but in real close, like 500 yards. And we can use Edisto as the refinary location. Sweet Jesus are we stupid. Does anyone notice what Obama is doing. He’s saying OK, let’s protect the good stuff in Alaska, and let South Carolina and all their GOP hacks take the pollution. And we say – Right on Baby, Right On! FL / GA line, eh – every day I get one more reason to move to Florida.
After decades of offshore drilling, Louisiana is still battling SC and Mississippi for the bottom of the barrel.
“BIG PUSH FOR OFFSHORE DRILLING COULD MEAN BIG BUCKS FOR SOUTH CAROLINA” GOVERNMENT.
And foreign oil companies.
I commented above before I saw your comment–yes, and the time to start poking our legislative delegation and state reps is now. South Carolina Permanent Fund, it could change the future of the state like nothing else. Between that and the ports, we should be and could be the wealthiest state in the south.
LOL! Surrrrrrrrrrre.
You have every right to laugh: History says that too many state legislatures use “rainy day funds” as a fill in for spending sprees.
Excellent concept! Can the “Permanent Fund” be used to bare down or cut on future SC taxes? Or would that fund be the toy of Gruberment, gaming the payouts to the good ol’ boy network?
Without decent beaches, SC has absolutely no appeal as a tourist destination. It’ll be Arkansas with shitty beaches like Texas.
I agree. I took the old gf to Galveston and was appalled at the smell, the shit that washed up on the beach and the place in general. Then again, that might be an improvement to Myrtle B.
Texas’ beaches are totally fucked. Tar balls in the sand, nasty water. Even down in Corpus Christi.
For the most part, the “dirty” Texas beaches have nothing to do with offshore drilling. The brown water is mud from the Mississippi River and the smell from rotting sargassum weed washed in from the Atlantic. I’ve been going to Galveston beaches for the last 3 years and have yet to see a tar ball.
I grew up near Galveston and the north eastern Texas coast. My family and I would find tax balls all the time. Not unusual to see a sheen on the water too. Oil drilling has definitely tarnished the beaches there. I didn’t know beaches were nice till we moved to Horry County.
“I didn’t know beaches were nice till we moved to Horry County.”
HA.
I’m sure if your ignorant self had your way the beaches of SC would be just as shitty as Texas. But at least foreign oil companies would make a killing, right?
There is virtually no offshore drilling off the coast of Texas.
http://texasfishingmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/texas_oil_rig_google_earth_map.png
http://texasfishingmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/texas_oil_rig_map_.png
Are these just neat fishing spots?
Tell that to my Dad, uncles and cousins who all worked in the oil extraction business from Texas in the Gulf. Are you fucking stupid or just a liar?
How dare you? You mean Chesterfield isn’t a tourist draw?
Fuck, y’all are going to let politicians ruin the one good thing SC has going for it: it’s nice beaches? Of course, you would.
Big bucks for SC… right up until a huge oil spill sends tons of SC businesses to bankruptcy court, right? There’s a lot more to this than “radical environmentalism,” but I guess BP didn’t teach us that lesson well enough.
You know money is speech and the oil companies have a lot to say.
You can bet Duncan, Graham, most of the rest of the SC delegation, and Haley have already begun cashing their free speech checks from the oil companies.
Our beaches are screwed, unless local business pony up cash to pay for speech of their own. But there likely isn’t enough cash in the state to be heard above the speech of the oil industry.
“Corporations are people my friend…” – Mitt Romney
No you support whatever mkes Rich people richer.
Excellent news. I hope we can model a system similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund. And are able to do what Sarah Palin did with a portion of the fund, the direct rebate to taxpayers in the form of a nice check. The state can use the fund for schools, roads, and to better our standard of living, as well as a nest-egg for our state credit rating. It can’t come soon enough.
Actually, Sarah Palin did not do that, did not originate that annual Alaska tax rebate. Big Oil originally suggested that a small portion of oil revenues go to the Alaska taxpayers … and governors previous to Palin followed through.
“… The state can use the fund for schools, roads, and to better our standard of living, as well as a nest-egg for our state credit rating. …”
Now that would be a very stupid idea. … that fund be the toy of Gruberment, gaming the payouts to the good ol’ boy network, for sure.
Referencing all the talk about Galveston and Louisiana. There is a difference in the fact that they are located inside the Gulf of Mexico. I am no meteorologist and I don’t study the oceans. But I am a thinker so this is what I think. Perhaps someone who knows better can show where I am wrong.
1. I grew up in New York City and we had the oily sheen and tar balls in the bay all the time. It didn’t stop us from enjoying the water and I was not damaged by it.
NOTE: I found out later that it was due to oil tankers flushing their tanks after unloading. Not from off shore oil wells which we didn’t have. That may be the case in Galveston and Louisiana.
2. The ocean floor leaks oil into the oceans all the time without oil wells. It’s a fact.
3. I don’t know how much natural seepage happens in the Gulf of Mexico but it probably does.
4. The Gulf of Mexico is surrounded by land except at the opening to the Atlantic Ocean where the Caribbean is.
5. Wind and water currents come into the Gulf and press up against Mexico and Texas. Watch the hurricane tracks if you don’t believe it.
6. I suspect the wind and water currents push any floating junk toward Mexico and Texas so that might explain why you have all the tar balls in Galveston. Like the way leaves will get pushed into one corner of a pool. Or the tar balls were pushed toward the western side of New York bay.
Any oil rigs off the SC coast will be in the big ole Atlantic Ocean. So any spill or leakage resulting from the SC oil rigs will be in the big water not the Gulf of Mexico bathtub. And by the way sea water and whatever microbes lives in it will eventually break down the oil
Anyway the Gulf Stream and the wind and other currents will probably push any oil/tar up toward North Carolina. So North Carolina would have a good reason to be called Tar Heals. :) Sorry but I couldn’t help myself.
“We swam in toxic water and we are fine”. That mentality might work in a nasty metropolis, but we have higher standards down here. Stick to bragging about the pizza ( and rightfully so)
I am sorry to send you off on that rabbit trail. I didn’t mean to say that having water pollution was fine so don’t worry about it. The main point of my last post was that comparing the results of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to a potential spill in the Atlantic Ocean is comparing apples to oranges.
People act as if oil spills are purposeful acts and the result of mean, uncaring oil company executives. News flash: Companies hate losing money and that is what they are doing when they have an oil spill.
I think that from where we were, in the quality of our water, to where we are now are worlds apart, and all this hyperventilating over the **potential** for some oil pollution if **something goes really wrong** is holding our economy back. Which I am sure is making the progressives and our competitors happy.
The only thing I miss about New York City is the pizza. :)
Followed soon by “Spill baby….Spill”
Must we learn nothing from history? At some point we’ll be dining on shrimp a ‘la oille
Good. This state may actually have a shipbuilding and engineering industry for once.
After 1978, seven oil wells were drilled in the South Atlantic. All were dry. No economically feasibly recoverable oil or gas has been found on shore in South Carolina.
perhaps newer techniques will find gas or oil offshore, but I’m not betting on it.
Obama’s plan calls for removing an area the size of South Carolina on the north slope of Alaska, with much more oil and gas potential, permanently from any development in exchange for Atlantic oil exploration. This isn’t a good deal for the country.
I would not bet against there being no oil in the Gulf Stream, North American continental shelf, sea bottoms, seriously.
imagine an oil slick washing up on the Battery or Kiawah Island. You do no have to be a radical environmentalist to be against it. You can be a common sense environmentalist against it.
Imagine something like the Gulf oil spill affecting our coastline. Myrtle Beach gone. Debordieux gone. Litchfield gone. Wild Dunes gone. Beaufort gone. Hilton Head gone.
You have every right to be concerned. Even one medium sized spill out in the middle of the Gulf Stream might tar the beaches from Jacksonville to the Outer Banks.
I personally am of the opinion that there are plenty of places in the world where beaches will not be spoiled, economies will be enhanced more, large populations will not be inconvenienced by drilling and extracting oil and gas. The Gulf of Tonkin for instance. (!!)
(Keeping perspective: Oil and gas leak from under ocean deposits regularly, without mankind’s help, but there is a very real risk that oil drilling in the Gulf Stream might exacerbate that. All of the early oil exploration in the 19th Century was centered around pre-existing oil leaking deposits … west Pennsylvania, “west” Virginia, central Ontario, Saudi Arabia, Russia … The first “wild cat” explorations where there were no existing surface indications were in north-east Oklahoma and Texas in the 1910’s.)
As the ocean, and its floor by extension, belongs to no one person but to the “public” and being within the bounds of South Carolina’s maritime boundaries. Give whatever oil company a lease for the first $30-40 per barrel they need to get out of the ground and the state general fund gets the rest. Then we can model ourselves like Alaska, the only state without property tax. doubt there is enough for a rebate check but maybe we can be rid of the property, income, and death taxes.
http://www.retirementliving.com/taxes-alabama-iowa#ALASKA
DHEC will protect our beaches and fish-filled estuaries! Count on it.
Just like our rivers and streams and farms.