Gov. Bob McDonnell issued the following statement Monday afternoon following Senate passage of a key piece of his legislative agenda.

A bipartisan majority in the Senate passed HB 756 (Stolle), a measure to allocate 80 percent of future offshore royalties and revenues to transportation and the remaining 20 percent to the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium, which researches and develops renewable energy solutions.

The passage follows McDonnell's meeting last week with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar where McDonnell expressed his strong support for wind energy production as well as keeping the offshore lease sale on schedule for 2011

McDonnell says, “Virginia is ready to begin environmentally-responsible offshore energy exploration and development. I applaud the Republicans and Democrats who voted for this common sense measure that positions the Commonwealth to become the 'Energy Capital of the East Coast,' and the first state on the East Coast to produce energy offshore. The foresight in passing this bill will ensure that when offshore energy revenues arrive, the Commonwealth will immediately direct them to two pressing areas: transportation and renewable energy research and development.

"There is bipartisan consensus on this issue. Offshore energy development has the support of this Administration, the Democratic State Senate, the Republican House of Delegates, and U.S. Sens. Mark Warner (D) and Jim Webb (D). When we move forward in the years ahead we will create thousands of new jobs for our citizens, produce hundreds of millions in new state revenue, and spur billions in investment in our Commonwealth. Virginia is ready to take the lead in helping move our nation closer towards energy independence, while creating new good-paying jobs for our citizens. We will do this by instituting a comprehensive energy plan that utilizes oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, biomass and all our energy resources. I look forward to signing this bill, and thank Sen. Frank Wagner (R-Virginia Beach), Del. Chris Stolle (R-Virginia Beach) and all the legislators who joined together to advance this important bipartisan job-creating initiative.”