Lowry Joins Fight To Keep Drilling Ban

Gov. Mike Lowry on Wednesday joined the fight against lifting the ban on offshore oil drilling.

The governor applauded the bipartisan effort by the state’s congressional delegation to overturn the vote of a House appropriations subcommittee to end the 13-year ban. Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., chairman of a key subcommittee in the Senate, flatly predicted the ban will be upheld.

“Allowing oil and gas drilling in federal waters off Washington’s coast is a terrible idea,” Lowry said in a statement. “It risks blackening our shorelines from Canada to Oregon with crude oil. The ban must be restored.”

Lowry noted that the state has extended its own ban on drilling within the three-mile limit. But the federal protection is critical, he said.

The governor said a major spill “could poison all our waters and shorelines. It would ruin private, public and tribal properties and would cause enormous harm to the natural environment and fish and wildlife.

“Sensible people don’t want to gamble the natural environment against a few years of oil supply.”