THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502040286
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
The effort to keep North Carolina out of a new five-year oil and gas lease plan has picked up an ally in Congress.
In a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. has asked that North Carolina's coast be excluded from the Mineral Management Service's new five-year leasing program. It's set to take effect in 1997.
Jones, whose father, the late Walter B. Jones Sr., authored the Outer Banks Protection Act, said North Carolina's coast needs and deserves the same protection from offshore drilling that other states enjoy.
``We need to be protected just like the West Coast, the North Atlantic coast, and south Florida,'' Jones said this week.
In 1990, the Bush administration placed a moratorium through 2000 on offshore-lease sales for coastal areas of California, Washington and Oregon, as well as Florida and the New England coast. But regions in the southern and mid-Atlantic regions - including North Carolina and Virginia - were excluded from the ban.
In his letter, Jones sharply criticized that exclusion.
``I strongly believe that the (North Carolina) beaches are every bit deserving of protection as those of California; that the fisheries equally important as those off Massachusetts or Oregon; and that the coastal economies as dependent on clean water or air as those of Washington, Maine or Florida,'' he wrote. ``To grant North Carolina less protection than any of these states is neither fair nor reasonable.''
Jones - a first-term Republican who represents the 3rd District of North Carolina - said he hopes to meet with Babbitt ``in the near future'' to discuss the Mineral Management Service plan.
The service oversees the federal government's oil and gas leasing program on the Outer Continental Shelf. In November, the agency restarted the clock on some 21 existing leases off the North Coast, which means 19 of the 21 leases will expire in two years, while the remaining will end in three years.
In September of last year, the Commerce Department upheld a North Carolina ruling that blocked offshore activity by a group of energy firms, led by Mobil Oil. The state ruled that drilling and discharge permits filed by the firms did not meet state coastal regulations. Coastal states are given that veto power by the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.
Mobil and other companies are in litigation in U.S. Claims Court, seeking the return of some $300 million they paid for leases off Alaska, North Carolina and Florida.
Last year, the House and Senate passed a bill calling for a moratorium on further lease sales off North Carolina. The bill was sponsored by former 3rd District Rep. Martin Lancaster. by CNB