The Obama administration’s decision to drop the Atlantic from the federal government’s offshore drilling plan is being heralded as a win for grassroots organizing against the might of Big Oil and its allies in government. (Photo: Arctic Rig via Shutterstock)Environmentalists and local community leaders across the Southeast scored a David vs. Goliath victory over the oil and gas industry and its powerful allies in government this week when the Obama administration issued a revised five-year offshore drilling plan that excludes the Atlantic.
“This is a victory for people over politics and shows the importance of old-fashioned grassroots organizing,” said Jacqueline Savitz, U.S. vice president for Oceana, a conservation group that helped organize against Atlantic drilling.
The Interior Department said it canceled the proposed lease sale off the Atlantic Coast between Virginia and Georgia because of “current market dynamics, strong local opposition and conflicts with competing commercial and military ocean uses.”
That local opposition, which was organized by a coalition of state and national environmental groups, included more than 100 municipal and county governments along the East Coast passing resolutions against offshore drilling and/or seismic blasting for oil and gas deposits, with many of them citing concerns about what a spill could do to their communities and economies. They included important tourist destinations such as Wilmington, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia.
In addition, thousands of citizens showed up to public meetings to express opposition to Atlantic drilling. A hearing held last March in the North Carolina Outer Banks community of Kill Devil Hills drew 670 people, most of them opposed to drilling, and set a new attendance record for a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management hearing.
On the other side, leading the push to open the region to offshore oil and gas development was the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, a…