House Speaker Joe Hackney chose a number of professors for a task force on offshore drilling.

The Chapel Hill Democrat named half of the 24 members of a task force that could spend as much as $100,000 and over a year looking into the state's position on drilling off the coast.

Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist for the N.C. Environmental Defense Fund and the member of an earlier panel that came out against drilling, was his choice for co-chair. Rader has previously criticized proposals for offshore drilling.

Other Hackney appointees include professors of civil engineering, economics, marine sciences and geosciences; the owner of an oil distributor; the representative of a natural gas company; and a former Cabinet secretary.

After the jump, the names and job titles of Hackney's 12 appointees.

Related: Basnight's appointees to drilling task force

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Doug Rader has criticized drilling before.

As noted previously, one of the co-chairs of a legislative task force studying offshore drilling editorialized against it last year.

But he's also been quoted opposing it over the years:

* "Although it is questionable whether any drilling at all is compatible with North Carolina's sensitive coastal resources, there is absolutely no way any oil or gas activity should ever be permitted in this unique and valuable region of the Atlantic." — Wilmington Morning Star, June 16, 1998.

* About Chevron's decision to put off drilling: "That's a very important development, especially at a time when so many other threats stand at the gates of North Carolina's coast. ... That's among the worst places in the world to drill for oil." — News & Observer, Feb. 4, 1999.

* About the U.S. Supreme Court taking a case involving offhosre drilling: "We welcome a final resolution of the outer continental shelf drilling mess off the North Carolina coast. ... The Supreme Court hearing of this case provides an opportunity to correct mistakes of past administrations, which allowed leases where they never should have been." — Charlotte Observer, Nov. 16, 1999. 

The co-chair of a legislative task force on offshore drilling editorialized against it last year.

In a guest editorial in the Charlotte Observer on Sept. 3, Doug Rader wrote that drilling for oil and natural gas off the coast of North Carolina will not reduce gas prices, jeopardize the state's fishing industry and threaten rare coral wilderness.

"The bottom line is clear: oil drilling off North Carolina's coast is not relevant to gas prices we are likely to experience in the coming decades," he wrote.

Rader was appointed by House Speaker Joe Hackney to co-chair a task force that will spend as much as $100,000 and up to a year looking into offshore drilling.

The chief ocean scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, he served on a panel for Republican Gov. Jim Martin in 1989-90 which came out against exploratory drilling off the coast.

After the jump, the editorial.

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