Republican County Board Chairman Cozies Up To Environmental Left

MANTEO – As soon as the administration of President Donald Trump announced plans earlier this year to open up testing for future offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, Gov. Roy Cooper and other environmentalist whackos lined up to cry ‘Not Off Our Coast!’ in unison. A few Republicans were all too happy to get chummy with Cooper and the Left in opposition to drilling, including state lawmaker Rep. Ted Davis (R-Wilmington) and Republican Chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners Bob Woodard.

Woodard even traveled to Raleigh in late February to argue against capitalizing on North Carolina’s vast offshore resources and cheesed for a photo op with the Democrat governor and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. That photo was posted the the Dare County Republicans Facebook page, but was taken down likely out of a sense of embarrassment.

Luckily, we have a screenshot:

Now why would Republicans want to remove a photo of a Republican community leader joining forces with the governor?

Because the position Woodard is advocating is antithetical to the policies of the Republican Party, counter to the tenets of capitalism, and pushes a false and alarmist narrative that belies the safety and enormous benefits of fossil fuel extraction and development.

Contrary to what the Leftists and confused Republicans would have you believe, offshore drilling for oil and gas is not only incredibly safe – spills are rare and getting rarer – but it is also an economic boon to adjacent communities that serve as services hubs for the energy development. Jobs, investment, and, yes, even more tourists. Not to mention more oil and gas that the Old North State would earn revenues from to lighten tax burdens.

Woodard also spoke before a raucous crowd of anti-drilling environmentalists while in Raleigh, fear mongering about the dangers of offshore drilling and seemingly pushing renewable energy over fossil fuels.

“Yes we support energy independence, but guess what, folks? There are alternatives that won’t jeopardize our coast. […] We’re gonna fight those who would jeopardize our coast and our children’s future.”

These are common talking points for Leftists that like to push the lie that drilling for fossil fuels, especially offshore is too big a threat to the environment and tourism industries.

Jeopardizing our children’s future? Being overly reliant on tourism and resisting diversification of the local economy in an effort to satisfy quixotic Leftists puts younger generations more at risk than drilling ever could.

Actually, drilling, and the use of those products is the life blood of an economy from local, to state, to national and global levels. Nearly the whole of our quality of life is owed to the responsible development of fossil fuels.

And Woodard must know this. After all, he has a nice truck that runs on gas and loves to play golf on courses fertilized with petroleum products.

Actually, all those tourists that visit the Outer Banks also drive cars that run on fossil fuels (or electric ones that get their charge from fossil fuels). They rent houses that are built with petroleum products. The fishermen motor out to their favorite spots with fossil fuels. The children go to school in cars running on fossil fuels, do work on petroleum derived products, and study so that they may one day embark on a career that may not involve servicing tourists.

Grassroots Republicans that don’t subscribe to the anti-drilling/anti-fossil fuels propaganda from the Left should call out Republicans who do.

If a Republican like Woodard and the Board of Commissioners is dead set to stand in the way of energy development off the North Carolina coast, they are standing in the way of prosperity, economic growth, and economic resiliency.

The beautiful beaches and robust tourism industries of coastal North Carolina are not at risk from offshore drilling. They are at risk from leaders that are ignorant to the benefits and inherent freedoms that such energy development would yield.