Trump Administration set to issue permits for Atlantic energy exploration

June 7, 2017

The Trump Administration is set to bring the Atlantic coast one step closer to energy exploration and development, as the National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to request five Marine Mammal Protection Act permits for companies to engage to seismic testing to determine how much oil and natural gas reserves exist in the Atlantic Outer-Continental Shelf (OCS).

The Atlantic OCS lies off the shores of the mid-Atlantic states, stretching from Virginia to Georgia. Previous testing, completed about 30 years ago, showed the Atlantic OCS could hold as much as 4.7 billion barrels of oil and 37 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but some experts believe the reserves could be far greater.

Seismic testing is opposed by the Coastal Conservation League, which has caused the process “risky.”

Retired Capt. James McCormick, a Bronze and Silver Star recipient and program director of Vets4Energy, however, said the testing is vital to our energy security.

"Having access to current information is crucial to making intelligent decisions," said McCormick. "Relying on mapping made 30 years ago just doesn’t make sense. Current reconnaissance using modern technology will tell us exactly what energy exists offshore.”

The administration’s actions are the latest step in the its “America First Energy Plan,” which is a sharp detour from the energy policies of the Obama Administration, which had blocked seismic testing.

On April 28, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order implementing "an America-first offshore energy strategy." Among other items, that executive order calls on the Secretary of the Interior to "develop and implement, in coordination with the Secretary of Commerce and to the maximum extent permitted by law, a streamlined permitting approach for privately funded seismic data research and collection aimed at expeditiously determining the offshore energy resource....

Read entire article at Palmetto Business Daily.