Interior Secretary Sally Jewell Nixes “Drill Baby Drill” Off Virginia’s Coast

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    Finally, a voice of intelligence and sanity.

    Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Thursday that the White House won’t allow drilling in the Atlantic Ocean while House Republicans are putting the finishing touches on legislation to do so.

    “We’ve done a five-year plan – it doesn’t include the Atlantic. I don’t expect to go back on that,” Jewell told reporters Thursday after a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing.

    President Obama’s five-year drilling plan, which runs through 2017, doesn’t offer any lease sales in Atlantic or Pacific coastal waters. A 2010 draft of his plan included Atlantic waters, but Obama pulled back on it following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill later that year.

    Thank goodness. Now, can we stop figuring out more ways to destroy the planet, and turn our focus to jump starting the clean energy economy instead? Thanks.

    P.S. Message to brain-dead Washington/Kaplan Post editorial board, which penned this pabulum this morning: being in favor of enriching Big Oil still further, while risking Virginia tourism, fisheries, U.S. Navy operations, and the environment in general, is not “centrist.” It’s just stupid.

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