New Jersey Nixes Drilling For Natural Gas

The state's political leaders, including Democrats Jon Corzine, Bob Menendez, and Frank Lautenberg, plus the Republican legislators whose districts include shore areas oppose offshore oil drilling. We've known this for some time.

What is less known is that they oppose drilling for natural gas, despite the fact that there are known deposits of natural gas found 90 miles offshore, well over the horizon. In fact, they've lumped the two together, making it impossible to drill for either natural resource, even though we know that there are significant finds of natural gas.

Natural gas wouldn't cause spills that foul the shores, but these same folks oppose drilling nonetheless. Never mind that natural gas finds would help reduce costs for heating and cooking. New Jersey is heavily reliant on natural gas, and none of it is produced locally. It comes via a pipeline from Texas.

The Democrats are pushing an eco-leftist zero-growth policy, while the Republicans are engaging in NIMBY. Both are wrong for the state, which benefits greatly from the fact that people can afford to come to the Jersey Shore and spend their hard earned money at Atlantic City and the towns and attractions throughout the state.

More to the point, they're pushing an alarmist view that spills will bespoil the beaches. Natural gas can't do that. It dissipates into the air because it's a gas. Menendez has shown pictures of oil spills surrounding oil rigs that were damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but ignores the part where those rigs were hundreds of miles offshore and didn't result in the shorelines being fouled. There are also further ways to reduce the likelihood of oil spills as a result of storms. Regulations could be set in place to require that the oil companies not only shut down production ahead of storms, but clear their pipelines into shore so that should the rigs or the pipelines be damaged, residual oil would not escape. That apparently was a problem in the Gulf of Mexico where oil rigs shut down, but didn't clear oil from the pipelines back to shore.

UPDATE:
Now here's a kicker. In 2005, New Jersey's Governor Codey (during one of his many chances to be interim Governor) authorized the construction of an offshore wind project. Now, the earliest that the project can be brought online? 2012. Watch the excuses fly, but let's be blunt.

Adler, and environmentalist Jeff Tittel of the Sierra Club, questioned how the state could achieve the twin goals of generating 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 and producing 1,000 megawatts of electricity through wind power — when it has not been able to get the 350-megawatt pilot project in motion.

"If you don't take the first step, you're not going to get there," said Tittel.

Lance Miller, chief of policy and planning for the BPU, said projects of this magnitude take time. He defended the BPU's diligence in selecting the best proposal.

"This is the first time we are considering offshore wind," Miller said. "It is one of the first times in the United States it's been considered. It's something you want to do right."

This has nothing to do with it being the first time it's been considered in the US. There are offshore wind projects elsewhere in the world. You simply have a lack of will among politicians who seemingly claim to push for green energy sources - like Gov. Corzine. Had he truly sought to wean New Jersey from fossil fuels, he would have fast tracked the approval process. He has not done so.