The Daily Press has an editorial in today's paper that nails it on the issue of drilling off Virginia's coast. Here's an excerpt, but I encourage everyone to read the entire editorial. Then call or e-mail your state representative, your Congressman, Senators Warner and Webb, Governor Kaine, Attorney General McDonnell, and anyone else who might be able to stop this lunacy.
The nation may need to include offshore resources in its energy inventory, but we don't yet fully grasp the implications of harvesting them. This much is clear: If there are environmental consequences, Virginia could end up coping with them - without much choice in the matter, or much income to compensate.In the end, decisions about what happens beyond any state's three-mile limit may be made at the federal level. Without adequately weighing the consequences, Virginia invited rigs off its coast when the General Assembly endorsed the idea, urged on by Wagner and not stopped by Kaine. That led the Interior Department to include Virginia on the short list of sites in its new "major proposal for expanded oil and natural gas development on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf" as early as 2011 - if existing moratoriums are raised.
It's not certain offshore drilling will happen. But Virginia has placed itself closer to the bull's eye.