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We're running out of time to stop Barack Obama's ill-conceived plan to allow oil drilling off the Atlantic Coast. Click here to send your comment opposing this plan before the March 30 deadline.
Friend,
Early this year, President Obama’s team unveiled a disastrous plan to permit oil drilling off the U.S. Atlantic coast for the first time since the 1980s.1
If approved, the plan would put communities and ecosystems from Miami to Maine at risk of an oil spill.2 Just as important, it would open up a huge new patch of fossil fuels to be dug up and burned, at exactly the moment scientists are warning us that to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to leave ¾ of proven oil, gas and coal reserves in the ground.3 This makes no sense when we can use alternative sources, like wind and solar, to meet our nation's energy needs - and create more jobs at the same time we cut pollution.4
But it's not too late to take action. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is auctioning off drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico today,5 and comments on the proposed Atlantic drilling plan are due on March 30.6 That makes today the perfect time to speak out.
Click here to send your comment to Secretary Jewell and President Obama telling them we can't afford to drill the Atlantic.
The five-year plan released by the Interior Department would lease parts of the Atlantic Ocean for new oil and gas drilling off the coast of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. And it's already taking fire from Democrats in the Congress,2 scientists and environmental groups.7
But Secretary Jewell hasn't responded to the pressure by pulling the Atlantic drilling plan, yet. Just yesterday she made a big speech in D.C. about how we can drill and frack our way to a prosperous future and promised to require improvements to Big Oil's safety equipment.8 I'm sure you're feeling safer already, right?
The BP Horizon spill in the gulf was a wake up call to millions of Americans that there's no safe way to drill for oil offshore. And with the added news that opening up new drilling areas will put us way over the planet's "carbon budget" there's simply no excuse to open the Atlantic coast.
Sign here to send your comment to the Department of Interior and President Obama before it's too late.
Thanks for speaking out to keep our oceans clean, and our carbon in the ground.
Drew and the team at Environmental Action
1 - Kate Sheppard, Obama Administration Outlines New Proposal For Offshore Oil And Gas Leasing, Huffington Post January 27, 2015
2 - Jennifer A. Dlouhy, East Coast Democrats protest Atlantic oil drilling, FuelFix, March 10, 2015
3 - Alan Rusbridger et all, Keep it in the Ground, The Guardian, March 2015
4 - Oceana, Offshore Wind Would Produce Twice the Jobs and Energy as Offshore Drilling in Atlantic Ocean, January 13, 2015
Environment America Research & Policy Center, Star Power: The Growing Role of Solar Energy in America, November 20, 2014
5 - Jennifer Larino, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in New Orleans for Wednesday federal lease sale, The Times-Picayune, March 18, 2015
6 - Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Five-Year Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program
7 - Franz A. Matzner, Interior’s energy path forward: Drill less, go clean, The Hill, March 17, 2015
8 - Joel Connelly, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell: ‘Vast areas’ available for offshore oil drilling but with care, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 17, 2015 |
