VA Pilot Offshore drilling: The big questions

The VA Pilot is doing a series on the push for offshore drilling in Virginia. The home page for the series is at pilotonline. It includes links to a 3 views of the issue published in Sundays Pilot. The view supporting drilling is laughable. Basically it says we need evergy independence so lets drill off shore for natural gas. It does not address what to do about environmental issues, how to get the country off fossil fuels once the gas is used up etc. Myra Oberdorf, long time Mayor of Va. Beach says lets get more facts before we make a decision. Her fence sitting doesn't play well at all. She does not provide any framework for analysis once "the facts" are known. The final installment of the series was from the local Sierra Club president, not surprisingly he doesn't like the prospect of offshore drilling. None of this is the most inspired writing but it does set the stage for what hopefully will be some slightly deeper thinking about the issue.
That is not to say that I think the issue needs a lot of deep thinking. If we are going to address the fossil fuel issue then lets address it now and not after we have risked the environmental well being of the entire eastern seaboard. Get on with it.