Today, President Obama trotted Interior Secretary Salazar out to do his dirty work: to announce the President’s decision to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
This is pure politics of the most cynical kind. It is all about the election season, not safety and environmental concerns. The White House wants us to believe that they have solved all the dangers of offshore drilling and we can return to business as usual. It is a false promise, if not a big lie.
I am in Gulfport, Mississippi right now on the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise, where oil is still washing up on the beaches beside me. Scientists have joined us on the ship to uncover what the White House has been covering up: that the oil is still here, that it is affecting our health, our environment, and that the worst impacts are likely yet to come. However, the government wants us to believe that a few technical and bureaucratic fixes add up to what they call a “gold standard” for dangerous offshore drilling.
