WASHINGTON - Get Kathy Phillips talking about oil exploration off the Mid-Atlantic, and she conjures a scene right out of the Gulf of Mexico, with drilling platforms, pipelines and pumping stations overwhelming the shoreline.
"People here on the East Coast don't have a clue what it means to have offshore drilling," said Phillips, an environmental activist with the Assateague Coastal Trust. "It's dirty business. The water is dirty, and your beaches end up being dirty, and you're dealing with globules of oil and globs of tar.
"I'm not even talking about oil spills. I'm talking about day-to-day operations."
With energy costs continuing to climb, politicians in Washington are again casting their gaze to the waters of the Mid-Atlantic, and the oil and natural gas reserves that geologists believe lie beneath. New talk of offshore exploration has the region's environmentalists on edge.
"It's definitely the wrong way to go," said Brad Heavner, state director of Environment Maryland. "You can't drill with zero impact."
The decision by President Bush to lift an executive order against exploring the Outer Continental Shelf is putting new pressure on Congress to end its own offshore ban. Republicans and some Democrats are backing legislation that would give coastal states the authority to allow drilling off their shores, in return for a share of the royalties the industry pays the federal government.
For now, the prospect of oil rigs off Ocean City remains distant. Gov. Martin O'Malley and Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski, all Democrats, oppose drilling off Maryland's Atlantic beaches. The state's eight House members, Republicans and Democrats alike, voted together in 2006 to uphold the congressional ban.
But in Virginia, where lease royalties have been seen as a way to fund state transportation needs, Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine favors exploring for natural gas. The state's two senators, Republican John W. Warner and Democrat Jim Webb, are backing legislation seeking the right to do so.
"Our national security requires that we work responsibly toward energy independence," Webb said. "In order to address our nation's energy crisis, all options need to be on the table."
Officials in Delaware, meanwhile, are open at least to talking about it.
"The door certainly is not closed to entertaining a discussion on the matter," said David Small, the state's deputy secretary of natural resources. "There's a lot to talk about, and what the potential implications are."
