Offshore Drilling: A Disaster in the Making
As the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe destroys lives and threatens to ruin our natural legacy, Floridians are uniting in opposition to offshore drilling.
We see more clearly than ever that the risks are too great and the rewards, far too small. Our environment -- and our coastal economy -- would suffer
serious and long-lasting harm. It's simply not worth it.
As this debate rages in the weeks and months to come, now more than ever, we
need to let our leaders know where we stand.
Will Florida
Stand United Against Drilling?
Incredibly, the oil industry is still aggressively
pushing legislation that threatens our world-famous coast.
And some of Florida's elected leaders are still supporting proposals
that would promote drilling closer to our
beaches and undermine Florida's
existing protections -- including a repeal of the ban on drilling just six miles offshore.
Even President Obama still supports a plan to drill in more than half of Florida's Gulf waters, bringing the risk of another disaster closer to our shoreline than ever before.
Now more than ever, Florida's leaders must stand united
again in defense of our coast.
Oil Rigs: A Risk Florida Can't Afford
At each stage of testing, exploration, and production, the oil and gas business
produces contaminated water, uses toxic drilling muds, and periodically spills
oil and toxic liquids into the ocean. Pollutants like mercury and
persistent hydrocarbons contaminate fish and sea life near platforms and
massive spills kill seabirds, sea turtles, fish and marine mammals.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed over 100 drilling rigs
and platforms and over 450 pipelines. The Minerals Management Service estimated
almost one million gallons spilled during the hurricane from offshore
facilities; the Coast Guard documented an estimated nine million gallons from
onshore and offshore oil facilities were spilled.
This August, a two-year old rig touted by the oil lobby as "the future of oil and gas exploration" ruptured and caused a massive nine million gallon leak off Australia's pristine Kimberly coastline. The West Atlas rig spewed oil into one of the ocean's busiest migratory routes for 73 days this Fall.
And now, with the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe causing 210,000 gallons of oil to be spilled into the Gulf each day, the day we hoped would never come may soon be here.
We Have Cleaner, Safer Choices
Oil drilling proponents say we have no choice, given rising oil and gas prices.
They’re wrong.
If our cars and trucks got an average of a couple more miles per gallon,
we'd save more oil than exists off the entire coast of Florida. Yet federal gas mileage standards leave much room for improvement. Instead of allowing oil companies to
drill off our coast, our governor, congressional delegation and president should be
leading the charge in Washington and in Tallahassee for better
gas mileage and clean energy.
Tell Our Leaders: Stop The Rush To Drill
The oil lobby would like us to believe that we can drill our way out of our
nation's energy problems. We're not buying it. Opening our shores to drilling
would only put our beaches and coastal waters at great risk for a small,
short-term supply of oil and gas. We can do better.
State and federal leaders know this. But they're facing enormous
pressure to take action against rising energy prices. Caving in to the oil lobby
would give them a chance to appear strong and decisive. Unfortunately for us,
though, we'd still face a long-term energy crisis while our environment and
economy would face new risks due to the pollution and potential for
catastrophic spills off our coast.
We need to tell our leaders in Congress to stop the rush to drill—and start
pushing sensible choices like using less oil by increasing fuel
economy, increasing funding for public transportation and planning for better
transportation systems.
