Southern political leaders and the oil industry want to find out if there’s enough oil and natural gas off the Atlantic coast to justify drilling for it. That’s a reasonable request that should be part of the country’s energy plan. What’s not reasonable is some politicians’ leap to the conclusion that offshore oil and gas will add immeasurably to southern states’ economies, creating thousands of new jobs and scores of new onshore businesses. Nobody knows enough about what’s under the Atlantic Ocean floor to make such an assertion. Gov. Pat McCrory has long supported an “all of the above” energy strategy and has backed both drilling and wind farms off the North Carolina coast. The governor is vice chairman of the Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition, an eight-state group pressing Washington to open up more of the sea floor for oil and gas […]