Clarification: This version of the story clarifies that the New Hanover County administration had no comment on the federal government's announcement.

Kure Beach mayor Emilie Swearingen spent much of Tuesday answering phone calls and responding to text and email messages from constituents applauding the Obama Administration’s decision to drop sites off North Carolina from oil and gas leasing.

Officials announced Tuesday that an updated version of the feds' proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-22 removes offshore tracts from Delaware south to Florida from consideration.

“The Proposed Program does not schedule any lease sales in the Mid- and South Atlantic Program Area due to current market dynamics, strong local opposition and conflicts with competing commercial and military ocean uses,” U.S. secretary of the interior Sally Jewell said in the announcement.

Swearingen has been outspoken in her opposition to offshore oil and gas exploration and drilling. When former Kure Beach mayor Dean Lambeth sent a letter to federal officials two years ago in support of offshore oil and gas activity, about 300 people showed up – mostly in protest – to a subsequent meeting in town hall, Swearingen said.

A videotape of the meeting’s pro and con exchanges was distributed on social media and stimulated opposition to offshore activity in other municipalities along the coast, she added. Swearingen herself, elected mayor in November, has been active in her opposition, even going to Washington to testify to a House subcommittee on the offshore leasing issue.

Tuesday, she was interviewed by media representatives, including reporters from The New York Times and from British newspaper The Guardian.

“Two years ago, we were considered ground zero for the entire East Coast,” she said. “Bless their hearts, [local residents] hung in there and never gave up. They made phone calls and sent letters [to government officials]. It’s been an interesting ride.

“We’ve all won. At least for the next 20 years or so we have protected our quality of life here on the coast. I’m really proud of all the citizens here who have worked so hard. I can’t thank the residents of Pleasure Island enough.”

Tuesday’s announcement by Jewell and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management director Abigail Ross Hopper, reversing the original proposed plan’s inclusion of tracts from the Atlantic coast, was also welcome news to Wilmington mayor Bill Saffo.

“I believe the Obama Administration made the right decision and the concerns of the environment [outweighed] the potential oil development,” he said Tuesday. “Concerns that elected officials and citizens voiced up and down the seaboard was enough to make the Obama Administration reverse [its] decision.”

The mayor said his primary concerns were about the safety of the environment, especially considering the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico and last year’s spill off Santa Barbara, California; and questions as to how oil and gas revenues would be shared with coastal communities.

“There was never any clarity, if [the leases] went through, how revenues would be shared,” he said, adding that local governments along the coast could be responsible for cleaning up if a spill should occur, without any promise of funds from the oil and gas produced.
 
“I am just so pleased to see our president step up to the plate in favor of the people who live on the coast,” Swearingen said Tuesday. “I am so proud of Kure Beach. There is no doubt in my mind that Kure Beach played a huge role in his decision. A lot of people on the East Coast came on board because of Kure Beach."

While a number of communities in Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties had voted to oppose offshore exploration and drilling for oil and gas, counties themselves were more cautious. In July 2015, the Brunswick County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution supporting seismic surveying in the Atlantic and the use of resulting data to “inform and promote” future offshore drilling efforts.

While some members of the public had asked the commissioners to reconsider their position, they had not done so, deputy county manager Steve Stone said Tuesday.

New Hanover County has not taken a position on the issue, and the county administration had no comment on Tuesday's announcement, county spokeswoman Ruth Smith said in an email.

A request for comment sent to the N.C. Energy Forum was referred to the American Petroleum Institute, which forwarded a statement released Tuesday by API president and CEO Jack Gerard. In his statement, Gerard said the administration’s offshore oil and natural gas policy “is inconsistent with the will of American voters, governors and members of Congress who overwhelmingly support offshore oil and natural gas exploration and development.

“The decision appeases extremists who seek to stop oil and natural gas production,” Gerard continued, adding that the removal of leases off the southeastern Atlantic coast from the program “would increase the cost of energy for American consumers and close the door for years to creating new jobs, new investments and boosting energy security. This is not how you harness America’s economic and diplomatic potential. While benefiting from energy policy choices made more than a decade ago, this inconsistent policy leads to unraveling the nation's ability to be a global energy leader and has left the future of American energy and national security vulnerable for the geopolitical challenges that lie ahead."

The National Ocean Industries Association likewise decried the administration’s decision to reverse course.

“It is difficult to put into words how wrong and anti-energy this decision is,” NOIA officials said in a statement Tuesday. “By not taking the long-term view, the administration sells U.S. consumers short. Instead, they have determined they are content to let the rest of world lead in Atlantic offshore oil and natural gas development. This is the wrong direction in efforts to continue the U.S. march towards energy independence.

“Contrary to the alarmist and scientifically inaccurate rhetoric of anti-fossil fuel groups, the fact remains that offshore oil and gas operations are conducted safely around the world on a daily basis, while technology and safety measures continually advance,” the NOIA statement continued. “Moreover, experience has shown that offshore development does not conflict with, but rather complements, rich tourism and fishing industries.”