Marshall Sanford: “I would like to support this bill. I believe in energy independence, as do the people I represent at home, and…”

“I would like to support this bill. I believe in energy independence, as do the people I represent at home, and accordingly am supportive of opening up these offshore areas--but I do not think this should occur without the concurrence and input of coastal states that might be affected were something to go wrong. This fits with what I have consistently heard from people up and down the coast. Not all decisions must be made in Washington, and the idea of a drilling rig going up just a few miles from our coast without having to acknowledge any degree of state input to me is the codification of Washington control. Some may be for a drilling rig these few thousands of feet from their local beach, others may be against it . . . but in keeping with the principal of federalism, that decision needs to be made by those affected--not an unelected government worker in DC. Toward that end, I introduced a bill, H.R. 3051, the Coastal States Extension Act of 2013, which would give states the final say on oil and natural gas leases out to twelve nautical miles from the current three nautical mile limit. States no longer have a direct economic tie as you move beyond the line of sight and in this regard, I thought my bill a reasonable compromise between drill and no drill interests. This would give states the flexibility to consider what is best for their economies in terms of the balance between tourism, drilling, fisheries and other considerations.…”