No drilling off North Carolina’s coast… It’s time to celebrate!
NCIPL recently presented a statement opposing offshore oil drilling unanimously approved by the NC Council of Churches Governing Board.
As a faith-based organization, we are called by God to preserve and respect the earth. As Governing Board members of the NC Council of Churches, we represent hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians as we take a moral stand against opening North Carolina’s coast to offshore oil and gas drilling. Read the full statement here.
NCIPL brought the Council’s statement to the attention of Governor Pat McCrory and Donald Van derVaart, head of the NC Department of Environmental Quality, with the notice that the statement had been sent to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Our faithful acts of have helped make a difference!
Obama’s announcement today of the cancellation of plans to offer leases for offshore oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic coincided with the release of the Administration’s Proposed Five Year Program for offshore oil and gas, which determines the areas for which lease sales will be held. The Administration had initially proposed opening a huge area off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia in a draft released last year.
In response to today’s announcement, Chris Carnevale, Coastal Climate and Energy Manager for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, made this statement:
The voices of the people have spoken louder than the influence of Big Oil, and this decision shows that the White House sincerely listened to local voices along our coast. Over the past two years, more than 100 local governments, 100 members of Congress, 1,000 small businesses and hundreds of thousands of people have voiced a bi-partisan call to protect our quality of life and booming tourism economy, rather than risk these assets with the impacts of offshore drilling. Our focus should now be on developing responsible offshore energy solutions compatible with our coastal resources, such as offshore wind energy.
Please take a moment to say thank you to President Obama for standing with citizens and protecting the coast!
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