Help West Coast States Ban Drillers From Their Shores
You'd think our leaders would've lost their appetite for new offshore drilling. You'd be wrong.
It's pretty clear by now that both Congress and the White House will instead rely on a squadron of problem-studiers and reform-instituters to protect our nation's shores, rather than step out into the brave new world of hard reality: that the oil we'll get from drilling is just not worth the risks.
So West Coast lawmakers are going-it-alone to protect their own.
In May, California Rep. John Garamendi (D) introduced a bill that would ban new offshore drilling in federal waters off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington. The bill now has 37 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and all six West Coast senators also back the legislation. (By the way, this is Garamendi's first bill. He won a special election last November on his strong progressive stances on a host of issues.)
His goal? To make sure the West's coastal economies -- worth some $34 billion, and 570,000 jobs -- are never, ever tarred like the Gulf's. The bill is necessary because, after more than 20 years of bipartisan support for a moratorium on offshore drilling in federal waters, now all bets are off, even despite the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Politicians are chomping at the bit to open more waters to drilling, and even President Obama seems likely to help this along.
Garamandi was a young, impressionable 24-year-old coming off a stint with the Peace Corps when California's shores were last battered by oil. Though it was 1969, we can recognize a familiar course of events: Union Oil, operating under a federal waiver of minimum safety standards, had a blowout -- resulting in 35 miles of the pristine Santa Barbara beaches hit with 11 straight days of spillage. In the aftermath, California banned drilling in state waters; It has held for more than 40 years.
That no drilling has yet occurred off of California's shores is also a testament to Garamandi. Last year, as California's Lieutenant Governor, he led a fight to block new drilling -- again off Santa Barbara's coast -- in what what would have been the first new offshore leases in California in more than 40 years.
If you care to spare future generations from tragic memories of oiled beaches, please sign Credo Action's petition now and tell your representative to sign on as a co-sponsor to the West Coast Protection Act of 2010. If your representatives have already co-sponsored the bill, this petition is also handy to thank them for doing so.
This matters whether or not you live in these three states, by the way, since all representatives' votes will be needed to pass this. Please sign here to show your support for the Left Coast.
Photo Credit: Doc Searls
Jess Leber
is a Change.org editor. She most recently covered climate and energy issues as a reporter in Washington, D.C
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