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In Our View: Protect Our Shores

West Coast senators quickly introduce bill to ban offshore drilling permanently here

The Columbian
Published: May 17, 2010, 12:00am

Just to speculate about offshore drilling in the Pacific Ocean beyond the West Coast was a bad idea even before the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatened to ruin environmental, tourism and other interests in at least five states. That accident has had multiple national impacts, among them strengthening resistance to offshore drilling.

Last Thursday, all six West Coast senators introduced legislation to permanently ban offshore drilling in federal waters off the coasts of all three states. It’s a common-sense approach that we hope succeeds. But before addressing that effort, we’ll point to another area where common sense is needed: the overall national reaction to the oil rig accident off the Louisiana coast.

The Columbian has editorialized repeatedly that converting America from fossil fuels to renewable energy — and curing our national addiction to foreign oil, much of it imported from countries we cannot trust — will take decades. With that in mind, it would be foolish to use the BP accident as a reason to shut down offshore drilling or impose other draconian policies upon the oil industry. More than 3,000 offshore oil rigs continue to operate in the Gulf Shore, pumping about one-fourth of America’s oil production. Just as even the worst airplane crash should not cause the shut-down of the entire airline industry, the proper response to the massive Gulf Coast spill should be based on science, rational thought and measured reform, not knee-jerk changes.

“Drill, baby, drill” makes no more sense than banning or shutting down all offshore drilling. A few weeks before the BP accident, President Barack Obama correctly observed: “The answer is not drilling everywhere all the time. But the answer is not, also, for us to ignore the fact that we are going to need vital energy sources to maintain our economic growth and our security.”

There’s no denying that Americans now are increasingly aware of the risks inherent in drilling off the West Coast. Skeptics would insist that last Thursday’s action by the West Coast senators was blatant grandstanding or opportunistic politicizing of a highly publicized offshore drilling accident. But we can’t blame the senators for looking out for the best interests of their constituents. After all, coast-related economies such as tourism and fishing produce $34 billion in annual business activity and almost 570,000 jobs in the three states. That’s according to Thursday’s press release. More specifically, in Washington state “the coastal region supports 162,000 jobs and generates $9.5 billion in economic activity. Commercial and recreational fishing in Washington fisheries alone support over 16,000 jobs and generate $540 million annually.”

All of that is worth protecting. The new legislation would “amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to permanently” ban offshore drilling in all federal waters off the West Coast. State bans already protect other areas.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said at Thursday’s press conference: “President Bush and Congress made a mistake in 2008 by letting the 20-year ban on drilling off Washington state expire. At that time, ‘drill, baby, drill’ was the popular rallying cry for some, even though we tried to point out that offshore drilling would never lower gas prices or impact our foreign oil dependence.” Then came the BP disaster. “Now, with the horrific oil rig accident continuing to unfold before us in the Gulf, it is all too clear that the majority of our constituents were right all along in opposing offshore drilling,” Cantwell added.

We’re not sure if offshore drilling is any more dangerous now than it was before the accident. But we are sure that (1) those dangers are better understood now, and (2) they have no place off the coasts of California, Oregon or Washington.

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