Say no to offshore drilling

Meager returns state might receive from drilling aren't worth risk to environment.

South Carolina has long opposed drilling for oil or gas off its coastline for a host of good reasons. Why invite drilling now?

A state committee recently gave its approval to natural gas and oil exploration off the South Carolina coast. The committee will recommend asking the federal government to include the state in a five-year plan that would open up exploratory natural gas drilling off the coast. Exploration could begin as soon as 2014, and drilling by 2018.

The state has long resisted proposals to allow drilling off its coast. One of the most basic reasons is that the South Carolina coast is not an especially promising site for oil and gas exploration. Geologists say that the region offshore has little potential for oil production, and while there is evidence of natural gas, rock formations are not likely to hold gas in concentrations that would be cost-effective to drill.

As the committee ponders plans to drill offshore, the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council will vote this month on placing 23,000 square miles of the Atlantic in the Southeast off limits to most bottom fishing and dredging. The protected area includes deep-water coral formations and sponges that are potentially invaluable for medical research, not to mention crucial to the health of the ocean itself.

This area, however, is exactly where the drilling would take place. While technology has reduced the environmental risk of oceanic oil and gas exploration, there is no guarantee that delicate natural formations on the sea floor would not be irreparably damaged.

Tourism, South Carolina's most lucrative industry, produces $16 billion a year in revenues for the state. By comparison, revenues from oil and gas exploration would be a drop in the bucket. It makes no sense to endanger environmental and tourism interests by permitting offshore drilling.

Finally, why would South Carolina embrace oil and gas exploration just as the world is poised to find and develop alternative energy sources? Progress is occurring overnight in the development of practical electric cars. Efforts to promote wind and solar power are progressing as well.

Some might argue that offshore drilling could help reduce dependence on foreign oil. But most of the outer continental shelf already is open to drilling. Oil companies have access to areas estimated to contain nearly 80 percent of the oil and more than 80 percent of the natural gas on the continental shelf. And the companies have permits to drill on another 68 million acres of oil-rich federal lands and waters they have yet to explore.

Whatever oil and gas found off South Carolina's coast would do almost nothing to offset domestic consumption. Nor is there any guarantee the oil would stay here: U.S. oil companies export more than 1 million barrels of oil a day.

The decision by the state committee to approve oil and gas exploration puts the state's environment and tourist industry at risk for a scant return on a product the world is trying to make obsolete. That strikes us as a lousy deal.