North Carolina's General Assembly wants to know more about offshore oil drilling and energy exploration.

Lawmakers announced plans Thursday to study the issue. Senator Marc Basnight announced he and House Speaker Joe Hackney will form a joint committee to determine the economic and environmental impact exploration would have.

The study announcement comes after a federal moratorium on drilling expired and the federal government began taking public comments on drilling off Virginia's coast.

Basnight, who is from the Outer Banks, opposes offshore drilling but said he's open to hearing the pros and cons.

"You would want information on how it would change our ports for the good or the bad. When you build refineries what do they look like? What do they do to the air and the water?" Basnight said.

Offshore drilling and energy exploration has been a controversial topic and a hot election issue, but now that gas and oil prices are dropping some drivers, like Garrett Sanders, are wondering if offshore drilling is necessary at all.

"As long as I keep paying low prices its fine with me," Sanders said.

If offshore will help keep gas prices low, Raleigh driver Nedra Bruner said she's onboard.

"We probably will need it eventually. I think they should find a way to do it so it might be safer, but you know, now that we have some leeway let's look into it," Bruner said.

Others, like Thad Valentine, said let's not.

"Myself I don't -- I'm environmentally conscious and I think we should try and find other options," Valentine said.

Republican State Representative Paul Stam agrees other options are part of the future, but believes offshore exploration is necessary now.

"It sure is, you know gas prices go up they go down, but we have the same basic problem, and really its natural gas that is probably in such large quantities off the outer banks," Stam said.

Elizabeth Ouzts, State Director of the group Environment North Carolina, said the current low gas prices are buying us time to find other options.

"I think that gives us an opportunity to think about the solutions that are really going to provide us relief from our oil woes which is not to drill for more oil," Ouzts said. "I think what the committee will find is that North Carolina's assets are in natural beauty and not natural gas."

The General Assembly doesn't have any power in determining if drilling or exploration takes place off the coast, but Basnight said congressional leadership could help push for it one way or the other. He said the studying the pros and cons of offshore energy exploration will cost about $100,000 dollars and that he will appoint members to the committee next week.