Obama’s Offshore Drilling Reversal Undercuts U.S. Security

The Obama administration just reversed its 2015 plan to open up waters off the Atlantic coast to oil drilling. Officials claim the reversal will protect national security. It will do the opposite.
The administration has long had an ambivalent view of offshore oil exploration. Plans to open up this part of the Atlantic Ocean for drilling were on the drawing board for years. This recent decision leaves them in the wastebasket.
Last year, the administration’s opposition appeared to have softened. In January 2015, the White House proposed auctioning drilling rights in up to 104 million acres of the mid and south-Atlantic in 2021.
Now, 14 months later, the administration has reversed course, citing the supposed concerns of the Department of Defense (DOD) as the reason not to drill.
According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) report announcing the reversal, the “DOD recommends that significant acreage of the mid and south-Atlantic Program Area not be made available for placement of oil and gas structures due to conflicts with DOD activities.” Such activities include Navy port facilities on the East Coast and its reliance on neighboring waters for training exercises.
Yet the Pentagon has no problem opening almost all of these waters to leases for drilling. Its 2015 assessment deemed no more than 5 percent of the area a “No Oil and Gas Activity” zone. It also crossed off  another five percent as a “No Permanent Surface Structure” zone – no offshore rigs.
That means the Pentagon is comfortable with oil activity in 90 percent of these waters. The Obama administration’s objection isn’t based on reasonable evidence.
For more proof, consider the Pentagon’s 2010 assessment. Nearly identical in substance to the 2015 analysis, the report presented no general objection to Atlantic drilling.
The BOEM report also warns of “a potential conflict” with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) operations from Wallops Island, Va. The space agency is said to be concerned “that the presence of oil and gas-related activity could result in NASA’s inability to meet its own launch commit criteria.”
Given the size of the area and the infrequency of NASA launch failures, the chance of a collision with an oil rig is vanishingly small. The presence of over 40 oil rigs off the southern coast of California doesn’t stop NASA from launching rockets from the Vandenberg Air Force base, sometimes directly over the rigs.
In short, oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic would not impede the military or NASA – and presents no threat to national security.
Drilling in these waters would, however, be a boon to our nation’s security. Many of the world’s major energy producers, like Iran and Russia, have a history of hostility towards the United States. As long as we import oil from such countries, our security is compromised.
The current energy boom has already improved our security. In 2015, the United States overtook Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas. For the first time in nearly half a century, our  nation imports a quarter of the oil needed to fuel our economy. We can’t afford to say “no” to U.S. energy. Demand is expected to grow by 12 percent by 2040. Merely maintaining current levels of production could see us become more dependent on foreign oil once again.
A ban on drilling and exploration off the Atlantic coast doesn’t promote national security, as the Obama administration claims. It diminishes it.
 Loren is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the George W. Bush administration.