Earlier this week I was feeling bold and decided to write emails to South Carolina’s legislature concerning the debate on whether or not SC should allow off-shore drilling in the near future. After conducting research into voting trends of our state senators, I noticed that Senator Lindsey Graham was beginning to vote more in-favor of environmentally friendly bills… this was a very small trend, but a trend nonetheless. I wrote to Mr. Graham telling him how I appreciated his new found concern for the environment and I hope he would continue to consider the impacts that his votes have on the planet. I concluded stating that the off-shore drilling plan could detrimentally affect the state’s $2M tourism industry if something were to go wrong. This was his response:
Dear Ms. Barto:
Thank you for contacting me regarding offshore drilling. I firmly believe the United States must break its dependence on energy from unstable areas of the world–particularly the Middle East–but that we must also be good stewards of South Carolina’s natural environment. Safe and environmentally conscious offshore drilling can create jobs and decrease our dependence on foreign oil and gas. I believe the question of whether to permit drilling off the coast of South Carolina should be closely evaluated, and ultimately the people of South Carolina should make the decision. As the Senate considers this issue, I will continue to seek a balance between energy independence and the protection of South Carolina’s coast. As your United States Senator, my primary job is to understand and represent the interests of all South Carolinians. The opportunity to hear from you about the issues confronting our nation is not only essential to representative democracy, but allows me to better serve the people of South Carolina. We will not see eye-to-eye on every issue; however, I promise to always give your concerns the consideration they deserve. I encourage you to visit my website http://lgraham.senate.gov as it will have information on the most recent activities before the U.S. Senate. You can also sign up for our e-mail newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages which will provide the latest information and updates on the major issues facing our state and our nation. Thank you again for contacting me. I truly appreciate the opportunity to hear from you and am honored to have the opportunity to represent your interests in the U.S. Senate.
Oh well, I guess you can’t win all of them. If off-shore drilling creates jobs, then who cares about what an oil spill would do to our beautiful marshlands, coasts, and marine life? Not to mention, fishing jobs – jobs related to tourism – and overall quality of life in our waters? Graham takes an L for this one, for some reason I am not sure that he would actually take my concerns seriously when it came down to making more $$$. But that doesn’t mean we should give up!!
I love that you took the time to reach out to our State’s Senator, Lindsey Graham. He did come speak at the college during the election, it was very interesting to hear him speak. I do see both sides to this issue. Lindsey Graham does make a great point by saying, “I believe the question of whether to permit drilling off the coast of South Carolina should be closely evaluated, and ultimately the people of South Carolina should make the decision”. I thought he worded that very well! Recently, I came across an article that was written about this same issue and our SC state Governor, Henry McMaster commented on this topic and his opinions was similar to that of Senator Grahams. As, I do agree with the fact that it will increase jobs, lower oil prices, increase oil production, etc. I do see the cons as well, but their a lot of negative impacts that our coast line and tourist market will face. Charleston is known for it’s tourism, we were rated 2nd of the World’s Best Cities in 2017 by Travel and Leisure, after number one; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The city of Charleston thrives on it’s tourism. Tourism aside our coastline is very important. We are one of the biggest ports. on iContainers we are number 8 out of 10 for being one of the biggest and busiest ports. Also, by creating an offshore drill we could not only be hurting ourselves from the carbon emissions, but hurting our marine life. We have and continue to help, maintain our marine life. I believe that once a week groups from the College, Aquarium and locals go to the beaches to clean up trash along the shore. By placing these offshore drills we could experience a HORRIBLE oil spill that could impact and maybe even endanger some of our marine life and that’s something that both Graham and McMaster focus on besides tourism; two big opposing arguments. But, I enjoyed this blog post and liked reading what Senator, Lindsey Graham had to say on this topic! Here are the following references I found some of my information from:
– https://healthresearchfunding.org/offshore-drilling-pros-cons/
– https://www.postandcourier.com/news/south-carolina-gov-henry-mcmaster-could-decide-offshore-oil-and/article_fd782a94-f23f-11e7-bc6d-53157fba92c5.html
– https://www.icontainers.com/us/2017/05/16/top-10-us-ports/
– http://www.travelandleisure.com/worlds-best/cities
First of all, Kudos to you for actually taking the time to write letters to our SC senate. I often see prompts for people to “call or write to your senator” to express concerns or show support for important issues, however, I have never personally had the discipline to do so. I have often wondered if our voices matter once an official has taken office and if they even read the letters that are sent. Even if they don’t it is people like you taking action that will result in change. Thank you for leading the way!
Thank-you so much for taking the time to be an engaged citizen and reach out! I don`t think it`s a failed attempt at all – keep on making that voice be heard!