On the recordJuly 13, 2016
I would like to talk just for 1 minute about the community impacts. Along the Atlantic Coast nearly 1.4 million jobs and over $95 billion in gross domestic product rely on healthy ocean ecosystems. In my State of Virginia that is 91,000 jobs and nearly $5 billion in GDP. The Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils have formally updated their policy position to express opposition and serious reservation to seismic airgun blasting. Our chair kindly says this isn't necessary because the Obama administration has taken the drilling off the table until 2022, but it has not taken seismic airgun off the table, and that research will go on. I urge my colleagues to support our amendment to put a moratorium on airgun blasting. Oil and gas development should not come at the expense of coastal communities and the marine species on which they rely. I yield back the balance of my time.
