*DELAWARE, New Law Says 'No Drilling Ever On Our Coastlines'
- In Bipartisan Push, New Delaware Law Says ‘No Drilling Ever On Our Coastlines’ - Another East Coast state says no thanks. E. A. Crunden, Think Progress, Sept. 21, 2018.
Delaware has become the latest state to take a hard line against offshore fossil fuel efforts, with a bipartisan push to protect the coastal state’s waters from oil and gas development.
Two bills allowing Delaware to both withhold permits from oil and gas drillers offshore and pursue legal action against them were signed into law on Thursday by Gov. John Carney (D).
Both bills enforce Delaware’s Coastal Zone Act, which already prohibits new activities like drilling in the state’s waters. Senate Bill 200 allows the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to refuse the permits while Senate Bill 207 authorizes Delaware’s Department of Justice to sue over action in waters further away from the coast.
The legislation also hopes to protect against the fact that most oil and gas drilling occurs farther away from Delaware’s coast in federal waters — Delaware’s waters only extend three miles offshore. The Interior Department signaled in January that nearly all of the country’s federal waters will be open to offshore drilling between 2019 and 2024, including the Outer Continental Shelf off Delaware’s coast. - More...
https://thinkprogress.org/delaware-bipartisan-offshore-drilling-oil-gas-wind-37da98135c4c/
