The Washington Post June 24, 2019 By Darryl Fears The federal government’s first study of the nearly 15-year-long oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico estimates that up to 108 barrels per day — more than 4,500 gallons — is flowing from a site where an oil company’s platform and…
June 21, 2019 Late yesterday afternoon, the U.S. House approved FY20 budgets for the Department of Interior and the Department of Commerce. Two of the amendments were extremely important and were offered by SC Representative Joe Cunningham (D). The first was approved by a voice vote and would block the…
The Hill June 19, 2019 By REBECCA BEITSCH Lawmakers gave initial approval to bipartisan measures to bar offshore drilling across the U.S. in a Wednesday meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee. The committee advanced bills that would bar drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as well as the…
June 18, 2019 Call S.C. Representatives NOW! Either this Friday (6/21) or Monday (6/24) the full U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Department of Interior-Environment funding bill. Four amendments are being offered. Three would ban offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic, along the Florida coastline and in the…
June 8, 2019 A seismic testing company has submitted a late request to be found compliant with South Carolina’s Coastal Management Program. Why this request is only coming in now given that all the other seismic companies did so years ago is not known. What is known is that the…
June 8, 2019 Mr. Dan Burger Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management DHEC 1362 McMillan Avenue Suite 400 Charleston, S.C., 29405 Re: Comments on WesternGeco federal permit application Dear Mr. Burger, Since January of 2015 the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce has been on the record opposing…
Charleston Post and Courier May 26, 2019 Three years ago South Carolina was led by a popular governor who was urging the federal government to allow drilling off our coast, our congressional delegation was cheerleading the effort and, while no votes were taken, it was generally assumed that the Legislature…
May 22, 2019 Yesterday the S.C. General Assembly passed a Joint Resolution that sets in motion a process to determine if the heavily in-debt state utility, Santee Cooper, will be sold or managed by a private utility or kept as a reformed state agency. The SC Department of Administration will…
Rick Baumann, founder of Murrells Inlet Seafood, will testify Wednesday (May 22nd) at 2:30PM to the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The hearing is on the reauthorization of the SBA Office of Advocacy, which is to represent the views of small businesses before Federal agencies and Congress…
Following the U.S. Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt’s April 25th public comments that he was delaying indefinitely efforts to produce a new five-year plan for oil leases off the nation’s coast, I sent Secretary Bernhardt a letter asking about his intentions on possibly suspending seismic permits processing for the Atlantic.…