By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI
News staff
The backlash against
President Trump and his environmental policies was evident in several bills
heard by the General Assembly last week.
The biggest pushback
came against the president’s order to open up the Eastern Seaboard to offshore
oil and gas drilling. The Senate Committee on the Environment and Agriculture
unanimously approved a resolution (S2360)
opposing the federal plan. But a bill (S2116)
that bans offshore drilling and restricts oil and natural-gas infrastructure on
the mainland met resistance.
Both the Rhode Island
Department of Environmental Management and the Coastal Resources Management
Council (CMRC) argued that the bill has the unintended consequence of
preempting oversight by the two state agencies and thus increasing federal
jurisdiction.
CRMC executive director
Grover Fugate said his agency already has jurisdiction beyond the 3 miles of
state waters to 30 miles within federal waters. That authority was granted with
federal approval of CRMC’s Ocean Special
Area Management Plan (Ocean
SAMP) in 2011.
Rhode Island is the first state with such a plan. It enlarges state oversight a full 200 miles offshore, as long as CRMC can show that local fishermen use those areas. Fugate is scheduled to meet with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in late April to apply for extending the rustication zone to 200 miles offshore.
Rhode Island is the first state with such a plan. It enlarges state oversight a full 200 miles offshore, as long as CRMC can show that local fishermen use those areas. Fugate is scheduled to meet with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in late April to apply for extending the rustication zone to 200 miles offshore.
“We do have mapping that shows our fisheries go out that far to the (continental) shelf area,” Fugate said during a March 28 Senate hearing.
If the additional
offshore jurisdiction is granted, CRMC has the authority to review the Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) proposal for leasing the outer continual
shelf for oil and gas exploration and extraction. Drilling companies that
receive a lease must also have their plans reviewed by CRMC. The reviews include
public hearings.
According to Fugate,
CRMC is required to reject those proposals if the board can prove that the
exploration and drilling disrupt fisheries for at least two years.
“Obviously, offshore oil
production has that potential,” he said.
BOEM, Fugate said, is
aware that CRMC has such regulatory oversight and has reached out to the agency
for information.
“The real issue is not
in state waters, it’s in federal waters,” Fugate said. “If the state
objects, the federal agency cannot approve that project.”
Several business groups
also opposed the bill, called the Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling and Exploration
Act. The Rhode Island Business Coalition (RIBC) said the group doesn't take a
position on offshore drilling activities in Rhode Island. Specifically, it
wants language removed from the bill that prevents construction of onshore and
offshore equipment that relates to refined fossil fuels.
“We believe this
language would even prevent building or improving existing facilities that
accept oil extracted from the Gulf of Mexico, despite the fact that product
from the gulf already comes to Rhode Island every day and it has done for
decades,” according written testimony from RIBC.
The RIBC letter was
signed by the Central Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, the New England
Business Association, the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce, the Rhode
Island Hospitality Association and the Rhode Island Society of Certified Public
Accountants.
The bill was held for
further study so that changes can be made collectively by CRMC, Senate legal
counsel and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dawn Euer, D-Newport.