Big Oil Ocean Assault Bill Pending

An outrageous pro-offshore oil drilling bill was the focus of a hearing this October in Washington DC.  Called the Accessing Strategic Resources Offshore Act, it would remove nearly every regulation and streamline the process to make current offshore oil and gas drilling laws (already weak) obsolete.  Here are a few provisions:

• Allow drilling anywhere in federal waters at any time—rendering irrelevant the existing law that requires a public review process, as well as required environmental, social, and fiscal safeguards.
• Strips the right of a President to establish marine national monuments or to withdraw other areas from consideration of drilling.
• Bribe states and communities by offering more revenue-sharing dollars the closer the rigs are to their coast.

Eliminating restrictions on Big Oil is wrong for many reasons.
Here are three:
1) Oil exploration and drilling is dangerous for people, and
harmful and polluting to the planet.
2) Fossil fuel expansion is antithetical to the energy future
needed for a sustainable world.
3) The current law is already weak, and allows as much
drilling as the current President would seek to allow.
However, at least it does require public review.

COA will monitor this monstrous proposal and keep you posted.  In the meantime, the fast-tracking of the current oil and gas proposals off the Atlantic coast continues under the Trump Administration.  Final decisions are expected by the end of the year and hearings planned for the holiday/new year holiday season…..of course.

Oil Drilling is Not Safe for People or Planet
On Friday the 13th of October a massive oil “leak” was reported in the deep ocean in the Gulf of Mexico by oil drilling giant LLOG Exploration, LLC.  The “reported” leaked amount is nearly 672,000 gallons at 5,000 feet below sea level.  The leak was caused by a pipeline fracture, although the infrastructure was practically brand new.  The location of the spill was just a few miles away from BP oil spill.  Just days later, on October 15, a gas drilling rig exploded in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, with 8 men aboard.  One father of three was killed and five seriously injured workers were rushed to the hospital. It is still under investigation.