The Interior Department says it's "temporarily postponing" three public hearings scheduled this month on its plan for expanding drilling off the Virginia coastline.
The agency says it's scrapping the hearings for now "so that information from the ongoing review of OCS safety issues that the President has directed can be appropriately considered in those meetings." And it says staffers who would have attended are now are busy dealing with the spill.
The environmental group Oceana called the move a "major win for the east coast.
"It has never been more clear that offshore oil and gas production is a dirty and dangerous business and that our ability to prevent and contain spills has not kept pace with our ability to access oil below ocean waters," said senior campaign director Jacqueline Savitz.
The US Chamber of Commerce is not happy, calling it a "snap" decision: "Now especially is not the time to be cancelling a transparent process to assess the prospects for and potential environmental impacts of offshore exploration," said Karen Harbert, CEO of the chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.
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