Brian Moran's campaign has started a 30 Days and 30 Reasons Why Brian series, and the first one is about offshore drilling. This is the key line in the fact check."Brian Moran is the only candidate to protect our environment by standing against offshore drilling because we can't solve 21st century challenges with 19th century solutions."
Is that true? Let's break it into parts.
1. "The only candidate to protect our environment"
That's definitely not true. Both Creigh Deeds and Terry McAuliffe want to protect our environment. Terry McAuliffe even has a detailed plan on energy and environment, which heavily emphasizes "clean energy," "clean tech," decoupling, building a "smart grid," energy efficiency, and much more. That sure sounds like "protect our environment" to me. Meanwhile, why didn't Brian Moran co-sponsor Chap Petersen's visionary, pro-environment Clean Energy Future Act? Along with Miles Grant and Josh Tulkin of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, I personally lobbied Moran on this. Sadly, we got nowhere.
2. "...by standing against offshore drilling"
First off, Terry McAuliffe does NOT support offshore drilling, only investigations into potential natural gas resources 50 miles or more offshore, and he's said so a gazillion times. Meanwhile, Brian Moran voted for this:
The measure also provides that it is the Commonwealth's policy to support federal efforts to determine the extent of natural gas resources 50 miles or more offshore and to support the inclusion of the Atlantic Planning Areas in the federal Mineral Management Service's draft environmental impact statement for natural gas exploration 50 miles or more off the Atlantic shoreline.3. "we can't solve 21st century challenges with 19th century solutions."
That's true, but then why did Brian Moran vote (in SB262) to "facilitate the construction of clean coal projects in the Commonwealth," to "giv[e] priority to processing permit applications for clean coal projects," and for a definition of "clean coal" that specifically did NOT include carbon capture or sequestration capabilities? In fact, the bill Brian Moran voted for defined "clean coal" as "any project that uses any technology, including technologies applied at the precombustion, combustion, or postcombustion stage, at a new or existing facility that will achieve significant reductions in air emissions of sulfur dioxide or oxides of nitrogen associated with the utilization of coal in the generation of electricity, process steam, or industrial products, which is not in widespread use..."
That may not be 19th century, but it's certainly not 21st century in the sense of addressing the dire threat posed by anthropogenic, CO2-induced climate change.
P.S. Brian Moran also said: "We're sitting on the Saudi Arabia of coal. We can't turn our backs on that." That also doesn't sound like the 21st century or "protect our environment."
P.P.S. Brian Moran also voted for increased construction of oil refineries in Virginia, and of course for the Wise County coal-fired power plant that many of us fought against the past couple of year (note: Brian was specifically asked recently about his vote for the Wise County coal-fired plant, and he said he didn't regret it at all).
