South Carolina Attorney Files Motion To Block Possible Offshore Testing

(Seneca, SC)——————Late last week, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson announced that he has filed a motion asking a federal court for a preliminary injunction to block possible offshore testing. Those permits could have been issued as early as last Friday, with testing beginning 30 days later. 

The motion was in support of a lawsuit that Wilson joined which was filed by coastal cities and the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. The permits approved seismic testing for companies to start looking for oil and natural gas by firing air gun blasts at the ocean floor, according to a press release from Wilson’s office. Among the arguments for the motion, according to the press release, is the argument that the testing would create a “public nuisance” for South Carolina, the adjacent landowner, by harming marine wildlife and therefore the state’s fishing and tourism industries.