Offshore Drilling Disaster Leads To No New Drilling Act
Most members of Congress are responding to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill by pretending that nothing has happened. They’re staying silent, hoping that people will just forget about the many problems created by offshore drilling. Others are begging for an oil drilling amnesty, asking that no one be held responsible for offshore oil accidents. A smaller number of people in Congress are actually working to prevent a future disaster.
Among this small number are Frank Pallone, Kathy Castor and John Garamendi. Yesterday, they introduced the No New Drilling Act, H.R. 5248.
The bill doesn’t play games with the pretense of environmentally responsible offshore drilling. Instead, it seeks to prevent the tremendous risk created by plans to radically expand offshore drilling all up and down America’s Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. If passed, the No New Drilling Act would do what its title implies: “prohibit the leasing of any area of the outer Continental Shelf for the exploration, development, or production of oil, gas, or any other mineral”.
Pallone explained, “We shouldn’t wait for another disaster to do what is right for all American shorelines and all the coastal waters. The harm that spills inflict on the environment can be permanent and the damage to the economy can be lasting. It is all but impossible to calculate the potential environmental damage and economic harm of a spill… Let’s make the BP spill in the Gulf the last one.”
[...] damage caused by the offshore drilling disaster have led some members of Congress to support the No New Drilling Act, a restoration of the generation-long moratorium on the expansion of offshore drilling in American [...]
[...] what you can do: Call your U.S. Representative and urge a cosponsorship of H.R. 5248, the No New Drilling Act. Telephone the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and give them the name of your member of [...]