House Hypocrisy On Cousteau Resolution and Offshore Oil
“Why do we think of the ocean as a mere storehouse of food, oil, and minerals? The sea is not a bargain basement,” Jacques Cousteau wrote two generations ago. “The greatest resource of the ocean is not material but the boundless spring of inspiration and well-being we gain from her. Yet we risk poisoning the sea forever just when we are learning her science, art, and philosophy and how to live in her embrace.”
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved H.Res. 518, a resolution noting the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Cousteau on June 11 this year. Cousteau did a great deal more than just create TV documentaries about pretty fish. He was an advocate for clean oceans, and an opponent of the pollution caused by offshore drilling for oil.
Congress may have passed a toothless resolution celebrating Cousteau’s birthday, but it’s refusing to give Cousteau what he wanted most of all – a protected ocean world. A bill has been introduced into the House of Representatives to restore the moratorium on the expansion of offshore drilling. H.R. 5248, the No New Drilling Act, would restrain the reckless push by the oil industry to conduct more and more oil drilling operations in the deep waters along our nation’s treasured coastlines. However, all but a few members of Congress are refusing to support the bill.
The Cousteau birthday resolution is worse than nothing when Congress continues to hold the profits of Big Oil in a higher place than the ecological integrity of American waters. It was a vote of foul hypocrisy for which the House of Representatives should be ashamed.
[...] the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing the upcoming 100th birthday of Jacques Yves Cousteau. Cousteau died back in 1997, so he didn’t have the opportunity to see this honor, or its [...]