Saving Seafood

Judge gives NOAA more time to study offshore drilling risks

October 22, 2024 — A federal judge has agreed to give NOAA Fisheries until next spring to complete its revised analysis of how offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico could harm the critically endangered Rice’s whale.

The decision is a key reprieve for the fossil fuel industry and the Biden administration. NOAA Fisheries was originally slated to lose its existing analysis Dec. 20, which threatened to temporarily shut down new and existing offshore development in the region. A finalized analysis must be in place for companies to proceed with offshore oil and gas drilling.

NOAA Fisheries (NMFS) will now have until May 21, 2025, before the existing analysis — called a biological opinion or BiOp — will be tossed out by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Read the full article at E&E News

US must do more to protect species from Gulf of Mexico drilling: judge

August 21, 2024 — A U.S. judge at the urging of environmental groups has thrown out an assessment by a federal agency governing how endangered and threatened marine species should be protected from oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Monday ruled the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Services’ so-called “biological opinion” was flawed and did not adequately address risks species face from oil spills and vessel strikes.

Read the full article at Reuters

Biden’s offshore drilling proposal met with criticism

July 6, 2022 — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, 1 July, 2022, announced a plan for leasing offshore oil and gas drilling sites over the next five years, which was immediately met with criticism from both supporters of expanding domestic production and environmental groups.

The plan calls for leasing up to 11 sites for drilling between 2023 and 2028. All but one of the sites would be in the Gulf of Mexico, with the other proposed site in Alaska’s Cook Inlet. That is a sharp reduction from the Trump administration’s now-nixed plans for 47 lease-sites over several more regions – including Atlantic and Pacific offshore sites.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Democrats want to prevent new oil and gas drilling in most U.S. waters. Their plan might work.

December 3, 2021 — A slew of climate provisions in Democrats’ roughly $2 trillion social spending bill face an uncertain future in the Senate. But there’s one big exception: limits on offshore oil and gas drilling.

Democrats, aides and environmentalists feel confident that the prevention of oil and gas drilling in most U.S. waters will survive scrutiny in the Senate, including from key centrist Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

Under the version of the Build Back Better Act that passed the House last month, new offshore drilling would be permanently prohibited in three major regions: the Atlantic, the Pacific and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Other policies aimed at limiting oil and gas development have inspired fierce partisan divides on Capitol Hill. But coastal lawmakers of both parties have rallied around preventing drilling off their coastlines. For instance, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) earlier this year introduced the “American Shores Protection Act,” which would codify a temporary moratorium on drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Big Oil wants to be Big Wind. Can fossil fuel companies be trusted?

October 18, 2021 — Danielle Jensen spent two years working on Mars — not the planet, the offshore oil rig.

Her job was to keep the crude flowing for Royal Dutch Shell. She operated the platform’s pumps and compressors, clocking two-week shifts with a mostly male crew.

Workdays were long, and walking around in a flame-retardant suit all summer in the Gulf of Mexico was brutal. But she felt good about providing energy to the world — modern society was built on fossil fuels, after all.

Times are changing, though, and Jensen wants to be part of the future. When Shell posted a job for planning an offshore wind farm off Massachusetts, she leapt at the opportunity. She now lives in Boston and works for Mayflower Wind, a joint venture of Shell and two European utilities.

“Once we get a few of these big projects installed and powering people’s homes, I think it’ll be unstoppable,” she says.

Jensen is the rare energy worker who has stepped from a carbon-intensive industry into one with almost no emissions at all. Her move mirrors a wider energy transition. Shell is among a handful of large oil companies racing to enter the offshore wind market, banking that their experience with ocean drilling can turn them into clean energy giants.

Read the full story at WBUR

Experts ask Congress for more offshore oil oversight as California cleanup continues

October 15, 2021 — Nearly two weeks after a pipeline ruptured and leaked tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean, environmental policy experts testified before Congress on Thursday, urging lawmakers to require more federal oversight of aging and abandoned offshore oil platforms and pipelines.

The recent spill off the Orange County coast has put the nation’s oil and gas infrastructure under new scrutiny. Some California lawmakers and environmental advocates have called for a prohibition on all future offshore drilling, while others want to extend a ban to companies already operating in state and federal waters.

In testimony before the House subcommittee on energy and mineral resources, offshore drilling experts painted a bleak picture of the federal government’s ability to ensure that oil and gas companies plug their old wells and dismantle existing platforms and pipelines. They warned that if Congress does not create financial incentives for the industry to pay the full cost of decommissioning its equipment, taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.

The cost could be astronomical. The federal government’s own estimates suggest that between $35 billion and $50 billion would be needed to plug offshore oil and gas wells that are no longer producing — or are no longer profitable. Meanwhile, companies have committed to financing only about $3.7 billion, less than a tenth of the expected cost.

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

 

CALIFORNIA: Orange County oil spill renews calls to ban offshore drilling

October 6, 2021 — A massive oil spill off the Orange County coast that’s fouled beaches and ecologically sensitive wetlands in what officials are calling an environmental catastrophe has renewed calls to ban offshore drilling.

The spill, first reported Saturday morning but perhaps detected the night before, originated from a pipeline running from the Port of Long Beach to an offshore oil platform known as Elly. The failure caused as much as 144,000 gallons of oil to gush into the Catalina Channel.

In the days that followed, the spill has left crude along stretches of sand in Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach, killing fish and birds and threatening sensitive marine habitats.

“The ecological and economic damage from this oil spill has the potential to reverberate for generations,” state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine) said this week. At a news conference Tuesday, Min called the spill “either a case of negligence or inaction.”

Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times

 

New Senate effort to keep oil rigs away from the Jersey Shore pushed by Menendez

May 27, 2021 — Legislation to permanently ban offshore drilling off the Atlantic Coast was introduced Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the latest effort by New Jersey’s federal lawmakers to keep oil rigs away from the Jersey Shore.

The bill would prevent the Interior Department from issuing any leases in the Atlantic Ocean or the Straits of Florida. The Atlantic Coast had been placed off limits to oil exploration through 2022 under the Interior Department’s five-year drilling plan, but Donald Trump tried to open most of the waters around the U.S. to drilling.

President Joe Biden put a stop to Trump’s efforts during his first week in office.

“As we turn the corner on the pandemic and hope for near-normal crowds and a strong summer for businesses at the Jersey Shore, the last thing we need is to open our coast up for a manmade disaster like an oil spill that threatens an already fragile economy,” Menendez said.

“Our boardwalks, restaurants, small businesses, and fishing industries depend on the health and safety of our beaches and the millions of tourists and day-trippers they attract,” he said.

Read the full story at NJ.com

REP. HUFFMAN’S BILL BANNING OFFSHORE DRILLING CONSIDERED BY SUBCOMMITTEE THURSDAY

May 17, 2021 — The following was released by The Office of Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA):

North Coast Congressman joined a subcommittee hearing on Thursday on protecting coastal communities and ocean resources from offshore drilling, which included consideration of his legislation, the North Pacific Ocean Protection Act.

Huffman said the bill would prohibit new oil and gas leases off the coasts of Northern and Central California, Oregon, and Washington, ensuring a sustainable future for coastal communities and the millions of jobs and billions of dollars in wages that depend on healthy oceans and coasts.

“We are not going to sacrifice the scenic, economic, tourism, cultural, and environmental values of our coastal regions at the altar of short-term profits for the fossil fuel industry. The risks of offshore drilling for our ocean-dependent economies and for marine ecosystems is not even close to worth it for us,” Rep. Huffman said during the hearing. “The bills we’re considering today go hand in hand with other necessary actions to reduce emissions and invest in renewable energy all while reducing risks and making sure that our coasts are clean, safe, and available to all Americans, not a sacrifice zone for the fossil fuel industry. Now we have an administration that gets it, and they are putting forward thoughtful, comprehensive solutions. But administrations can change, and we saw that during the last four years — what it means when an administration has a reckless drill everywhere agenda. We should not leave this to chance. Our oceans, our fisheries, our coastal communities and economies, and our planet are too important to put at risk.”

Read the full press release:

House Natural Resources Committee Holds Hearing on Huffman’s Bill to Ban Offshore Drilling

Legislation would protect North Pacific Coast, Communities from Offshore Drilling Risks

Washington, D.C. – Today, Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) joined a subcommittee hearing on protecting coastal communities and ocean resources from offshore drilling, which included consideration of his legislation, H.R. 3048, the North Pacific Ocean Protection Act. This bill would prohibit new oil and gas leases off the coasts of Northern and Central California, Oregon, and Washington, ensuring a sustainable future for coastal communities and the millions of jobs and billions of dollars in wages that depend on healthy oceans and coasts.

Representative Huffman has led the charge to protect the entire West Coast as well as the Arctic Ocean from offshore drilling. In 2015, Rep Huffman first introduced his West Coast Ocean Protection Act to permanently protect the California, Oregon, and Washington coasts by amending the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit new oil or natural gas leases in each state’s outer continental shelves and permanently protect the $44 billion coastal economies of the three states.

Rep. Huffman has led several other key pieces of legislation to shepherd permanent protections for the West Coast, including:

  • the Coastal and Marine Economies Protection Act, bipartisan legislation to permanently ban oil and gas leasing off both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts;
  • the Keep it in the Ground Act, legislation that would reduce carbon emissions and our nation’s addiction to fossil fuels by permanently barring new fossil fuel leases on all federal public lands and in federal waters;
  • the Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act, which would prohibit new or renewed oil and gas leasing in the Arctic Ocean Planning Areas of the Outer Continental Shelf.
  • Rep. Huffman’s West Coast Ocean Protection Act was also included in the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis’ Climate Action Plan, a comprehensive congressional climate action framework, during the 116th Congress.

“We are not going to sacrifice the scenic, economic, tourism, cultural, and environmental values of our coastal regions at the altar of short-term profits for the fossil fuel industry. The risks of offshore drilling for our ocean-dependent economies and for marine ecosystems is not even close to worth it for us,” Rep. Huffman said during the hearing. “The bills we’re considering today go hand in hand with other necessary actions to reduce emissions and invest in renewable energy all while reducing risks and making sure that our coasts are clean, safe, and available to all Americans, not a sacrifice zone for the fossil fuel industry. Now we have an administration that gets it, and they are putting forward thoughtful, comprehensive solutions. But administrations can change, and we saw that during the last four years — what it means when an administration has a reckless drill everywhere agenda. We should not leave this to chance. Our oceans, our fisheries, our coastal communities and economies, and our planet are too important to put at risk.”

“Permanently protecting our coasts from dirty and dangerous drilling is a crucial step toward addressing the climate crisis and protecting millions of jobs nationwide that rely on a clean coast economy,” said Oceana Campaign Director Diane Hoskins. “Oceana applauds Congressman Huffman for introducing the North Pacific Ocean Protection Act, which would permanently protect the waters off of Central and Northern California, as well as Oregon and Washington from new oil drilling. From toxic oil spills to accelerated climate devastation, we cannot afford any new offshore drilling. We must permanently end new leasing for offshore drilling and transition to clean, renewable energy sources like offshore wind to create jobs and power our clean energy future.”

“The North Pacific Ocean Protection Act will ensure that the Washington, Oregon and Northern and Central California coastal environments, economies and ways of life will be protected from the harmful effects of offshore oil and gas development. The Surfrider Foundation strongly endorses HR 3048 and urges members of Congress to support this and other legislation to permanently ban new offshore drilling in U.S. water,” said Pete Stauffer, Environmental Director, Surfrider Foundation

“Offshore drilling and leasing are not compatible with President Biden’s climate goal of protecting 30 percent of our lands and 30 percent of our waters by 2030, for a safe, livable future. We need to protect our coastal economies, stop pollution and spills from damaging fragile coastal ecosystems, and fight climate change. That’s why the Sierra Club continues to oppose any leasing or drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and wholeheartedly supports this legislation,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s Lands Protection Program.

“This bill is exactly what is needed now to safeguard our coastal economy, restaurant and fishing jobs, and the health of our oceans. We can’t afford to subject our coastline or our country to more industrial pollution and the ever-present threat of another BP-style disaster,” said Irene Gutierrez, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council.

THE VIRGINIAN PILOT: Congress must ban drilling off Virginia coast

March 16, 2021 — For a state heavily dependent on Navy operations and tourism to drive its economy, particularly in Hampton Roads, Virginia should welcome efforts to permanently ban oil and gas exploration off the coast.

The prospect of drilling rigs perched in the Atlantic — with their perpetual threat of environmental calamity — should send shivers across the commonwealth, and a new push to enact a ban deserves Virginia’s enthusiastic endorsement.

Rep. Donald McEachin, a Democrat representing Virginia’s 4th Congressional District, introduced a bill barring the Interior Department from issuing leases for exploration or production of oil or gas off Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware. McEachin has introduced similar legislation in the past, but it got nowhere.

In recent years, the fate of drilling off Virginia’s coast has been swinging in the partisan political winds.

Read the full story at The Virginian Pilot