Spill Baby Spill

We hear a lot about how "safe" offshore oil drilling is now. Well, Hurricane Ike recently did a lot to dis-prove that notion.

Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

In the days before and after the deadly storm, companies and residents reported at least 448 releases of oil, gasoline and dozens of other substances into the air and water and onto the ground in Louisiana and Texas. The hardest hit places were industrial centers near Houston and Port Arthur, Texas, as well as oil production facilities off Louisiana's coast, according to the AP's analysis.
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oil drilling is NOT the answer

Dems plan to keep Big Oil out of their backyard backfires

This week Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, lost a last minute attempt to maintain a moratorium on oil shale production on federal lands in the Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. . The measure, which was tagged to an economic stimulus package, failed to get the necessary votes to maintain the moratorium.

Apparently Reid, who hails from Colorado, believes that the interior states are somehow more worthy of protection than our nation's coastlines...

"Drill Here, Drill Now" Crowd Still Not Satisfied

Inaction by Congress will allow the 27-year moratorium on new offshore oil drilling to expire on October 1. Unbelievably, even that piece of bad news may not be the worst development for our coasts. Today we learned that Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina intends to push for adoption this week of his bill, S. 3636, called the "Drill Now Act of 2008" (we're not making this up).

The bill would have the effect of rapidly accelerating expansion of offshore drilling on all parts of the Outer Continental Shelf, including the entire Pacific and Atlantic coastlines, as well as those portions of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico now protected until 2022 by the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (GOMESA 06). GOMESA represents a compromise in which Florida gave up 8.2 million acres of previously-protected waters to drilling through past authorizing legislation enacted in 2006.

Any state that had previously been protected by the annual congressional OCS moratorium could be opened to drilling before 2012, through a waiver of the usual congressional review of a new Five-Year Leasing Program. S. 3646 would also attempt to bribe coastal states into accepting offshore drilling with a share of federal revenues from such drilling, while severely weakening the ability of coastal states and impacted third-party interveners to engage in legitimate litigation to protect their interests as offshore drilling goes forward. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would all be waived by this provision. You might ask yourself, if offshore oil drilling is as environmentally benign as its supporters claim, why do they need to suspend environmental laws?

Please contact your senators and ask them to oppose this legislation.

Senate votes to end moratorium on offshore drilling

This afternoon, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a spending bill that allows the 26-year ban on offshore oil drilling to expire.

The end to the ban on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is a major victory for Republicans, who have seized on drilling as a major election year issue, citing multiple public opinion polls that show a majority of Americans support more offshore drilling. Speeches at the Republican National Convention last month were often interrupted with chants of "Drill, baby, drill."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, had incurred Republican wrath for originally blocking any vote on drilling before allowing a vote on limited drilling earlier this month.

The federal moratorium will be lifted October 1st.

Former CIA Director Urges Us to Get Off Oil

It's not just environmental groups like Surfrider that that are concerned about the short-sighted, dangerous and ineffectual frenzy to "drill baby drill." In a Scientific American interview, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey says America's oil dependence is a grave threat to our national security. He states:

"It’s not just foreign oil. It’s oil. I think one thing that’s been wrong about the debate is that people assume everything would be fine if we just had more domestic oil and relied on foreign sources for a smaller share. I think that’s entirely wrong. [...] So I talk about independence from oil, not foreign oil."

He urges:

• the rapid adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles
• prompting the transition by providing incentives for saving energy

Offshore Oil Drilling Ban to End - Democrats Show No Spine

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse on offshore oil drilling - it did.

Era of Offshore Oil Drilling Ban Draws to a Close

After 27 years, the moratorium will expire in days. Democrats say they have no chance of renewing it in the face of Bush's opposition and election season pressure.

"I think it's awful," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). "This battle is not over. We will come back and fight another day -- that's for sure." Rep. Lois Capps, a Democrat from Santa Barbara, where a 1969 oil spill devastated the coastline, said, "I hope that when Congress revisits this issue next year, with a new president, we can negotiate a compromise that respects the need to protect coastal states and puts our country on a path to a clean-energy future."

Read it and weep for our coasts here.