Georges Bank Safe for Now
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 – Georges Bank will continue to be free of offshore drilling, for now.
House leaders agreed Wednesday to remove a provision, which would have overturned a federal moratorium on offshore drilling, from a sweeping budget bill. The provision, part of the Deficit Reduction Bill, would have made individual states responsible for renewing or canceling the federal freeze on offshore drilling that was instated in 1998 under President Bill Clinton.
Also stripped from the bill was the controversial plan to allow drilling in a portion of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Had the plan passed, it could have been a critical first step in opening Georges Bank to oil and natural gas drilling.
“We are relieved and glad that the House of Representatives had the good sense to take these important ocean treasures off the development block,” said Priscilla Brooks, director of the Healthy Oceans Program at the Boston office of the Conservation Law Foundation. “We believe that oil and gas exploration and development will be harmful to the marine mammals and other ocean life.”
Georges Bank has circular currents, Brooks said, which would prevent any spilled oil from dissipating and moving out to sea. The acoustic impact of drilling, she said, would be a threat to whales’ extreme sensitivity to underwater sound.
Brooks said she does not believe there is anywhere in New England that is appropriate for drilling, especially on Georges Bank where the amount of oil and gas does not justify the risks involved.
The Senate version of the bill does contain the offshore and Alaska oil drilling plans. If the Deficit Reduction Bill passes the House, it would send the bill to a conference of House and Senate negotiators who would reconcile the differences between the two versions. They could re-attach the drilling plans.
“It’s a small victory because the Senate version of this bill actually contains all this language,” said Steven Broderick, aide to Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. Broderick said Delahunt would vote against the House version of the Deficit Reduction bill, which is expected to be voted on next week.
The budget reconciliation plan that originally included the drilling plans was introduced in October by the House Resource Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo, R-Calif.
Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., and a group of other moderate Republicans, including members of the Republican Main Street Partnership, urged the House leadership Wednesday night to remove the oil drilling plans.
At a press conference Thursday with several Republican congressmen, Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., said the issue of drilling deserved its own debate and should not be part of the budget reduction. Bass said he would not vote for the final package if it included oil drilling in the Alaska refuge, which is also known by its acronym, ANWR.
“If you want the thing to succeed you better keep ANWR out,” Bass said.
Gilchrest said the moderates’ opposition is an example to the public that there is a strong feeling from a centrist group about conservation and fiscal responsibility.
“New England is breathing a sigh of relief,” Brooks said, “at least for now.”
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