Saving Seafood

VIRGINIA: Port Authority to receive $20 million for offshore wind

January 27, 2022 — The Virginia Port Authority will receive a $20 million grant from the Department of Transportation to make improvements to Portsmouth Marine Terminal to turn it into a staging area to support the building of 180 wind turbines 27 to 42 miles off the Virginia Beach coast.

Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine made the announcement Jan. 13 and said in a joint statement that “this funding is a recognition of the Commonwealth’s leadership in this space and will go a long way toward establishing Virginia as a hub for offshore wind development along the East Coast.”

The money came from the Department of Transportation’s Port Infrastructure Development Program, a competitive discretionary grant program run by the Maritime Administration. Warner, Kaine and Rep. Bobby Scott co-signed a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in support of the port’s grant application.

Read the full story at the Suffolk News-Herald

Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts senators push Trump for aid for their states’ seafood industries

July 6, 2020 — Four U.S. senators representing the Chesapeake Bay region wrote a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday, 1 July, urging him to invest COVID-19 funding to the area’s shellfish farmers whose businesses have been greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter, written by Virginia’s U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Maryland’s U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, all Democrats, asks Perdue to use some of the USD 16 billion (EUR 14.2 billion) appropriated through the CARES Act to purchase oysters and clams from Chesapeake-based aquaculture businesses.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Trump’s plans to expand offshore drilling face headwind on Atlantic coast

February 22, 2018 — WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s bid to open Atlantic waters to offshore drilling has sparked bipartisan opposition in the states with the largest oil and gas reserves off their coasts, presenting unexpected obstacles to the long-held designs of the energy industry.

In recent years, political leaders in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina had supported oil and gas drilling off their coasts, envisioning high-paying jobs and increased tax revenues. But new governors in the three states – two Democrats and a Republican – have all reversed the positions of their predecessors, fearing the potential impact on beaches, fisheries and tourism industries.

“This last election we’ve seen a significant shift at the leadership level,” said David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, a trade group representing large energy users and producers. “If you look at the last 10 years, the majority of the governors and the public had been supportive.”

For oil executives in Houston, an international center of the offshore oil and gas sector, the Atlantic coast is a new frontier that could potentially mean significant profits in the decades ahead. Most of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, have a major presence here, employing thousands of people, as do firms specializing in offshore drilling and services, including TechnipFMC, National Oilwell Varco, McDermott International and Transocean.

But the recent shift in political and public sentiment represents a very real threat to their plans.

The oil and gas industry has sought access to U.S. Atlantic waters for years, hoping to find rich oil and gas fields similar to those off the coasts of Nigeria and Ghana. In Trump – who proclaims “energy dominance” almost as frequently as “Make America great again” – the industry believed it had found the key to achieving its goal.

Energy companies came close two years ago when former President Barack Obama considered allowing oil and gas development in Atlantic waters. They had the support of Republicans and Democrats, including Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016, and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime friend and fund raiser for Hillary and Bill Clinton, but Obama ultimately decided against an expansion of offshore drilling.

Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle