BALTIMORE (Legal Newsline) – Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh praised the U.S. Department of the Interior’s motion to shelve oil drilling plans in the Atlantic Ocean Outer Continental Shelf in a recent statement.
“This is a terrific decision by President Obama,” Frosh said. “Our experience in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere around the country, and around the world, shows just what happens when oil drilling goes wrong. But even when it goes right, the effects are dangerous. Seismic testing harms marine life. Industrial activity destroys fragile coastal environments. Routine and inevitable leakage fouls water and kills fish and plants. There is simply no reason to play Russian roulette with the Chesapeake Bay or with vulnerable Atlantic Coast shoreline.”
Frosh has been against the drilling plans since last year when he submitted written comments to the Interior Department. In those comments, he argued that the entire process would degrade Maryland’s natural resources.
The shelved plan would have allowed oil rigs as close as 50 miles to the coasts of many Atlantic states, including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.