5 yrs after the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Obama wants to drill in the Atlantic from Va. to Ga.

Five years after the Deepwater Horizon Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico President Obama  unfortunately has joined the "Drill Baby Drill" chorus. The Obama Administration wants to start leasing tracts in the Atlantic off of Virginia the Carolinas and Georgia.

Obama administration opens up southern Atlantic coast to offshore drilling – but restricts it in Alaska

By Joby Warrick

The Obama administration on Tuesday outlined a politically fraught plan for allowing oil and gas drilling in U.S. coastal waters, announcing steps to open parts of the southeastern U.S. coastline for oil leasing while imposing new restrictions on environmentally fragile waters off Alaska’s North Slope.

The draft plans could potentially lead to the appearance of drilling platforms off the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Georgia, in a region where state governments have traditionally backed expanded oil development offshore.

The draft plan envisions a single future oil lease that would cover a portion of middle and southern Atlantic coast, including offshore areas of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and Georgia. Jewell characterized the plan as “early-stage,” and said any lease would require a 50-mile buffer to limit damage to coastal areas from a potential spill. Interior officials were “looking to build up our understanding of resource potential, as well as risks to the environment and other uses,” Jewell said.

Whether the coastal residents of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia are as receptive to this proposal to turn their coastline into the newest oil patch as the politicians in those states are, remains to be seen.

The plan would allow 10 sales in the heavily developed Gulf of Mexico, including one in the eastern zone near Florida.

Big Oil who wants all US coastal waters to be used as sacrifice zones for their profits, blasted the plan as being inadequate.

Oil industry officials attacked the plan before the details were publicly announced, accusing the Obama administration of keeping too much of country’s oil reserves locked away.

Putting more of our shoreline as risk to disasters similar to the one we recently experienced in the Gulf follows the pattern of exploiting more vulnerable areas to potentially destructive fossil fuel extraction. This Area of the Atlantic is also where Atlantic Hurricanes often make landfall.