http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_81_1533.aspx
Bill Davis
Editor, StateHouse Report (SC)
August 1, 2010 –
State Sen. Jake Knotts may believe that he “ain’t no tree-hugger,” but he’s beginning to sound more and more like one.
“We got to do what we can to protect our state’s beaches. They’re the most valuable things we got in South Carolina,” said Knotts, who helped kill a proposed bill in committee earlier this year that would have asked the state Department of Health and Environmental Concerns to expedite permits for offshore drilling.
Knotts, better known for his love of guns and West Columbia, said this week that the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has brought into sharp focus the need for the legislature to make sure “all the I’s are dotted and all the T’s crossed” before the state clears the way for any offshore exploration, whether it’s for natural gas or oil.
The moratorium against offshore exploration along the Atlantic coast was lifted late during the Bush administration, and while the Obama administration has yet to reinstate the moratorium, exploratory efforts have been put on hold.
Bill could be up again
But with gas prices always poised to rise again, interest in offshore drilling could force a bill back onto the South Carolina legislative agenda when the General Assembly returns in January.
Knotts said this week that he is not against drilling, per se. But he just wants to make sure the oil industry and the federal government have their collective acts together and that before any drilling ever starts here, they have learned valuable lessons from the Gulf spill that threatened everything from jobs to the entire ecosystems along the coasts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
“A, what, seven-inch crack in a pipe took nearly 90 days to close?” Knotts said, making a home-spun argument for alternative energy. “All I know is a windmill falls over, and oyster beds aren’t ruined; fish and shrimp loads aren’t impacted. You just put up another windmill and keep on.”
Music to someone’s ears
Knotts’ words are music to the ears of environmentalists like Dana Beach, the executive director of the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, who said drilling profitably off the S.C. coast is at best a “fiction.”
Beach, who is waiting before he nails Knotts’ picture to his trophy wall, was referring to the belief held by many of the state’s scientists that there are not enough oil deposits off the coast here to warrant interest from the oil industry, and natural gas about 50 to70 miles offshore.
“Well, then he’s got nothing to worry about,” said state Sen. Paul Campbell (R-Berkeley), who served with Knotts on the same committee.
Campbell supports drilling
I won’t mince words. I’m for offshore drilling,” said Campbell, a former regional president of aluminum maker Alcoa. “If we don’t go after [drilling], we’re being irresponsible, especially in terms of the number of jobs and opportunities it could bring the state.”
Like Knotts, Campbell said he would support efforts to search for fuel sources off the coast, but only if there were a comprehensive management and safety-response plan in place.
Planning pounded by cuts
But who would run the plan? DHEC, often criticized for being under-manned, under-funded, and overly-friendly with testing subjects, has been hit hard by recent budget cuts.
In this year’s state budget, DHEC has seen nearly 50 percent of its operating budget from state general funds cut, according to a department memo. The agency’s overall budget has been affected because the state general funds are matched by federal contributions.
“DHEC does a great job,” said Knotts. “But they’re already overloaded. They do a good job with the money they’re given.” Given the hamstrung nature of the department, Knotts said now would be the worst time to call for expedited permits.
That topic will be the main discussion point next Friday at Coastal Carolina University, where its 13th annual economic growth summit, put on by the business school ,will tackle the issue “Consequences of Offshore Drilling on the Carolina Coast, positive and negative.”
The event will bring together an academic panel of experts on issues ranging from tourism to ecology. Ralph Byington, the college’s business dean who worked on an oil rig in a former life, said these are crucial issues to coastal areas like Conway, where the school is located, as well as the rest of the state.
Crystal ball: Like abortion, offshore drilling looks like an issue that will be reintroduced and fought over for years to come. And that would be a monumental waste of time, according to the SCCCL’s Beach, because there are bigger issues to deal with. For example, because of limited drilling opportunities off our coast and expanded ones off mid-Atlantic states like Virginia, Beach said the legislature – and the federal government — needed to focus on not preparing for a mess of the state’s own making, but a potential fiasco floating south from neighboring states.
http://www.statehousereport.com/
Special thanks to Richard Charter