The U.S. Department of the Interior today suspended

RICHMOND (5/6/10)—The U.S. Department of the Interior today suspended ‘indefinitely’ plans for a proposed oil and gas lease sale off the Virginia coastline. Citing new safety concerns following the Gulf oil-spill disaster, the Department announced that a series of public meetings scheduled this month in Virginia as part of the leasing process were now on hold as the Department investigates the explosion and sinking of BP’s Deepwater Horizon platform.

Statement from Mike Tidwell, Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network:

“This decision by the Department of the Interior is desperately welcomed by concerned Virginians across the state. We should not be gambling with Virginia’s fragile tourism and fishing industries when we still don’t know what went wrong in the Gulf. Now is also the best time to re-double efforts to develop clean offshore wind farms in Virginia instead. Risky oil platforms along the Commonwealth’s coast will only bring a few days worth of U.S. oil supply at best. We need a permanent commitment of offshore Virginia wind energy, which could power 3.6 million electric cars, and a permanent moratorium on dangerous crude oil ‘Russian roulette’ in the state.”

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