ABC 15 News (WPDE)
April 22, 2025
House bill seeks to permanently end oil exploration along the Atlantic Coast
by Haileigh West, Caitlin Richards
(WPDE) — A bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives that would permanently prohibit offshore drilling for oil along the Atlantic Coast and Straits of Florida.
The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce (SCSBCC) has led the East Coast business fight against offshore drilling for the last 10 years. In 2015, the organization took the opposing position of testing and drilling for oil off the Atlantic Coast.
Frank Knapp, the President and CEO of SCSBCC, said that from 2010 through 2020 in the U.S., there were 6,000 oil spills.
“The most notable one is deep water rising in the Gulf that just devastated the economy in that area,” said Knapp. “We have a tourism-related economy along our coast that draws a lot of money to South Carolina’s budget and livelihood for literally tens and tens of thousands of people. We can’t risk turning Myrtle Beach into a beach of oil or Hilton Head or anywhere else or anywhere else in South Carolina.”
Two members of Congress, Representative Frank Pallone and Senator Corey Booker, both of New Jersey, are sponsoring the “Clean Ocean and Save Tourism Anti-drilling Act,” also known as the “COAST Anti-Drilling Act.”
SCSBCC co-founded and led the Business Alliance to Protect the Atlantic Coast to stop oil exploration efforts and any future drilling projects.
“I think that the interest of both is to protect what we have along our coast, we need these pristine beaches, we need the waterways. We need all great recreational fishing, all that is threatened when you do any type of oil exploration or drilling in the Atlantic,” said Knapp.
In 2018, a lawsuit was filed in federal court that challenged the Trump Administration to issue permits for oil exploration in the Atlantic.
A campaign was launched in 2019 that called for Democratic candidates for President to pledge to use an Executive Order that would ban new offshore oil drilling leases on public lands and waters.
President Biden took the pledge on his first day in office and honored it.
A poll released by Oceana in July 2024 revealed that two-thirds of American voters, 64 percent, support elected officials protecting U.S. coastlines from new offshore drilling, with similar support among registered voters in coastal states, 66%.
“It’s about time that we simply took this threat off the table by making it a permanent moratorium on any drilling for oil in the Atlantic. We need to put this aside and go on to other issues instead of having this hang over our head, year after year, administration to administration,” said Knapp.