Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling, local leaders praise offshore drilling decision

Local governmental and conservation leaders on Tuesday praised a decision by the Obama administration that barred offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.

Elected leaders in municipalities up and down the coast opposed drilling and its precursor, seismic testing.

Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling helped lead the charge in South Carolina, encouraging residents to write elected officials and talking to mayors along the coast.

In late 2014, he suggested Beaufort resident Megan Feight start a petition opposing offshore drilling, and the online form directed to Gov. Nikki Haley and U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott drew 3,400 supporters. The city was the first in the state to pass a resolution opposing drilling, Keyserling said.

The mayor was in Washington, D.C., on Monday with Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg to talk to White House officials and South Carolina’s Congressional delegation.

They presented a 20-page list of more than 100 coastal cities and towns opposed to drilling. Thousands of South Carolina jobs and billions of tourism dollars were at stake, Keyserling said.

“The stakes were very high,” Keyserling said Tuesday. “You have your ups and downs, and then you get your surprise and you win.”

Keyserling and Tecklenburg traveled to Washington after a S.C. Wildlife Federation official with ties to the White House told Keyserling a decision on offshore drilling was close. The mayors met with Jerry Abramson, an assitant to President Barack Obama and director of intergovernmental affairs, and also with U.S. Reps. Mark Sanford and Tom Rice and the staff of Rep. Jim Clyburn.

In a statement Tuesday, Sanford praised the local campaigns against drilling. He noted the multiple “Don’t Drill SC” signs he saw on a recent bike ride to the beach.

He credited local leaders like Keyserling, state Sen. Chip Campsen and a list of other local advocates.

“...The point here is that today represented a big win for the coast and the principle of local advocacy,” Sanford said in his statement.

Conservation leaders and elected officials opposing drilling called the practice a threat to tourism and the coast’s quality of life.

“We share the responsibility to ensure that future generations can enjoy the precious natural resources that we do,” Coastal Conservation League energy director Hamilton Davis said in a letter Tuesday. “Today we succeeded in defeating a proposal that would have put everything we love about this place at risk.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling, local leaders praise offshore drilling decision."