PRESS RELEASE

Date:       August 18, 2017
From:      Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast (BAPAC)
Subject:   Over 41,000 businesses call on dropping Atlantic from oil drilling plan Contact:  Frank Knapp, President/CEO of BAPAC, 803-497-3204 (w),
803-600-6874 (c),  fknapp@protectingtheatlanticcoast.org

Columbia, SC—The Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast (BAPAC) has filed comments to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is developing a five-year plan for offshore oil leasing.  BAPAC is the leading business organization opposing seismic testing and offshore drilling for oil in the Atlantic.  The organization has the support of over 41,000 businesses from Maine to Florida.

“Our comments cover all the elements that BOEM is required to consider before it makes areas of the outer continental shelf available for offshore drilling for oil,” said Frank Knapp Jr., President and CEO of BAPAC.  “We made it very clear that there has been no change in the reasons BOEM used in 2016 to justify excluding the Atlantic from the last oil leasing plan .  In fact, those same reasons to protect the Atlantic have grown exponentially in importance.”

BAPAC’s opposition to offshore drilling in the Atlantic is joined by a huge bipartisan coalition of Governors—New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina—117 members of Congress, 10 state attorneys general, numerous state legislators, 129 Atlantic Coast municipalities and tens of thousands of East Coast citizens.

The official comment period to BOEM has closed.  After BOEM releases a draft of the five year plan, the public again will have the opportunity to comment.

Read BAPAC’s comments here.