New Energy, New Jobs
By JR Hoeft | Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 | PoliticsMcDonnell’s latest commercial advocates for his “all of the above” approach to energy, which he thinks will bring new jobs to Virginia:
The Democrats called the ad “more of the same”.
“[McDonnell] promises energy jobs NOW, but he’s already dismissed alternative energy and hasn’t shown how he can expand traditional oil drilling anytime during the next four years,” said the DPVA in a release.
I’m not sure where they got that picture from. A core pillar of the McDonnell plan is “Support Alternative and Renewable Forms of Energy and make Virginia a “Green Jobs Zone” and “Explore and Drill for Oil and Natural Gas off Virginia’s Coast”.
And why aren’t we drilling within four years? Ask the Democrats and Gov. Kaine.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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One Response to "New Energy, New Jobs"
I am still not understanding how offshore drilling will create jobs in Virginia. The people doing the E&P work will be coming from, most likely, Texas. Yes, they might dine out in Virginia Beach, but is that anything more than a negligible impact on the Virginia economy. The pipeline for production could easily avoid Virginia all together as most of the refining capacity is further up the coast from us. We have a total of one refinery in the state; and it has a rather meager throughput.
On your previous post, the OCS Lands Act gives zero royalties to the state for production that is more than 3 nautical miles away from our coastal watershed. Lease 220 is more than 50 miles offshore. Unless Congress passes a bill to change the revenue sharing as they did for the gulf states, then we get no royalty revenue. It would all go to MMS. This was one of the many assumptions that would have to come into being in order for Saxman’s previous bill or Bob McDonnell’s transportation funding proposal to generate any real money. We must assume that Congress does not re-enact the moratorium and that Congress passes a revenue-sharing bill that will treat all states like the gulf ones. Given Democrats control of both houses, I think the first is likely. And given the need for revenue at the federal level, I think even if item 1 doesn’t happen, getting revenue sharing still seems unlikely.
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