Protecting our Coasts, Communities, and Climate from Offshore Oil Drilling

By Vicky Wyatt

by Vicky Wyatt

October 30, 2017

Coastal communities along the Atlantic Ocean — indeed, across the country, from Alaska to California to Louisiana to North Carolina — are deeply concerned about Trump’s eagerness to open up their coasts to the oil industry.

©Mark Meyer/Greenpeace

“Largest oil and gas lease sale in US history” screams the Department of Interior’s press release, followed by a long list of quotes from members of Congress slavishly admiring this step to lock us all into more climate change-inducing fossil fuels. Of course, they would say that when so many are bankrolled by oil and gas billionaires.

Talk to America’s coastal communities, including those that Greenpeace’s ship, the Arctic Sunrise, has been visiting, and it’s a different story.

Coastal communities along the Atlantic Ocean — indeed, across the country, from Alaska to California to Louisiana to North Carolina — are deeply concerned about Trump’s eagerness to open up their coasts to the oil industry. They couldn’t be clearer – they don’t want drilling on their doorstep – not just because an oil spill would devastate their communities and local wildlife, but because drilling for more fossil fuels will worsen climate change that so many of them have been experiencing for years.

In the aftermath of hurricanes Irma, Maria and Harvey, and record-breaking wildfires running rampant through California, it is ironic that we should be allowing oil companies to drill for more of the stuff that is driving climate change and the increasing the intensity of events like major hurricanes and intense wildfires.

Next month, Trump will likely publish his proposed plan for our federal waters to be offered up to oil companies to drill offshore. We’ve joined together with communities fighting to protect our coasts, and we won, and we can win again. We have shown that when millions stand together we can take on and defeat the oil industry and show that our climate, our coasts, and our communities are more important than the profits of a handful of oil billionaires.

It’s not just the Trump administration that is bending over backwards to make things easier for the oil and gas industry. Some of our members of Congress are considering two bills to make it easier for industry to drill offshore, with fewer safeguards.. The first, the Streamlining Environmental Approvals Act, will severely weaken the Marine Mammal Protection Act and fast track the process to allow seismic airgun blasting, the precursor to offshore oil drilling, affecting dolphins, sea turtles and the last five hundred North Atlantic Right Whales. The second, the Accessing Strategic Resources Offshore (ASTRO) Act, seeks to strip the ability of future Presidents to create new national marine monuments and reduce public consultation on where the oil and gas industry should be allowed to drill.

We’ve seen people rise up to protect their communities, their coasts, and the climate and claim victory over the oil and gas industry. Together, we stood up to Shell and its plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean. Because of our opposition to seismic blasting in the Atlantic Ocean, permits were denied and our oceans were safe. Together, we won protections for the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean. And can do it again if we stand together!

Want to take action right now? Sign this petition to your representative to prevent the fast tracking of seismic blasting, which is the destructive first step to offshore drilling that kills whales and dolphins.

Vicky Wyatt

By Vicky Wyatt

Vicky Wyatt works on the climate team at Greenpeace USA. 

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