This Is Not a Drill

One of the primary goals of the Institute’s Center for the Blue Economy (CBE) is “to provide data and anal­ysis that becomes part of the policy conversation,” says CBE Director Jason Scorse. A policy reversal by the Obama Administration this spring illustrated how relevant, timely data and research can have an impact on policy decisions.

Opening the Atlantic to offshore drilling has been debated since the 1970s Arab oil embargo. An indus­try-commissioned 2013 report by Quest Offshore Resources estimated that offshore drilling could generate nearly 280,000 jobs and up to $23.5 billion a year in economic activity by 2035. A year later, Administration of­ficials released the first draft of a new five-year offshore development plan that proposed exploration and drilling leases off the southeast Atlantic Coast.

In 2015, the Southern Environ­mental Law Center asked the CBE to review the Quest study and describe economic activity that could be af­fected by offshore drilling. The CBE analysis identified flaws in the job es­timates and disputed Quest’s estimate of billions of dollars in revenue shar­ing for states. It pointed out that Con­gress has refused to share oil and gas royalties with states outside the Gulf of Mexico for the past 40 years, and that declining oil prices would signifi­cantly reduce exploratory activity, and therefore its economic impact, below Quest’s estimates. Using detailed eco­nomic data from the CBE-based Na­tional Ocean Economics Program, the new report also highlighted the poten­tial negative impact of an oil spill on a vibrant $15 billion a year ocean-based economy in a region built primarily on tourism and fisheries.

In March, the Administration re­leased its final five-year plan, which no longer includes opening the South Atlantic to offshore oil drilling. Sub­sequent media reports in the Wash­ington Post, Miami Herald, and sever­al newspapers in the Southeast cited the CBE report’s findings as a factor in federal officials’ abrupt reversal on offshore drilling. DailyKos noted that the CBE report found that elements of the Quest study touting the benefits of offshore drilling were “based on out­dated assumptions, including leases based on oil trading at $120 a barrel in 2018. It is currently trading below $40 a barrel. When projected economic benefits were weighed against po­tential damage, the CBE report found that the states where off-shore drilling would have been allowed might gain little to nothing.”

“The data we uncovered spoke for itself—I’m just glad people in the Administration were listening,” says Scorse. “It’s important for policy­makers at all levels to understand the bigger picture when it comes to ensur­ing a healthy, vital ocean and coastal economy.”