Vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is being accused of flip-flopping on offshore drilling after he said this weekend he agrees with Hillary Clinton that it should be banned.

The Virginia lawmaker told members of the environmentalist group 350 Action Saturday he has evolved on the issue.

"Will you support Hillary Clinton and support a ban on offshore drilling?" activist Griffin Sinclair-Wingate asked.

The senator responded, "I actually am now in that position because the Obama administration decided not to do offshore drilling because the defense department objects and I share those views."

On Monday, the Virginia GOP responded to Kaine's remarks by highlighting reports showing his past support for offshore drilling.

The Associated Press, for example, reported in April, "Republican governors in North and South Carolina back drilling off their states' coasts, as does the Democratic governor of Virginia. The state's two Democratic senators also support drilling."

Earlier, in 2015, Kaine signed a letter to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wa., saying he supported Atlantic drilling.

"Offshore energy exploration can be an opportunity to diversify the economy and create jobs in the Mid- and South-Atlantic region, as well as a means to lessen our national reliance on foreign sources of energy," he wrote.

Also, in 2013, the Daily Press reported Kaine had co-introduced legislation proposing to lift the moratorium On offshore drilling.

"U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine introduced legislation Wednesday that would lift the federal ban on exploration and drilling for natural gas and oil off the coast of Virginia," they reported. "the moratorium, which lasts through 2017, was put in place by President Barack Obama's administration following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

"Warner and Kaine want the moratorium lifted so that decades old maps of Virginia's offshore energy resources can be updated and leases for offshore gas and oil drilling as well as wind farms can go into effect in 2020," it added.

There's more, which suggests the senator's support for the practice dates several years and that his evolution on the issue is both sudden and somewhat surprising.

Spokespersons for Kaine and Clinton did not respond to the Washington Examiner's request for comment.