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Stop Offshore Drilling

What's New

On April 20, BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore platform exploded and caught fire, causing a major oil spill. Florida's coastal environment -- from our beautiful beaches to coastal mangrove forests in the Everglades -- may never be the same.

The accident has claimed the lives of 11 rig workers and caused the spillage of 210,000 gallons of oil every day into habitat for endangered sea turtles, six species of whale, brown pelicans and more marine animals. Now, as the spill creeps closer to Florida's world-renown beaches, the livelihoods of more than one million Floridians and our $65 billion-a-year coastline is in jeopardy.

It couldn't be clearer that offshore drilling is too dirty and too dangerous for Florida.

Drilling for oil off our coasts is a destructive policy that will put our beaches and wild places at risk while doing nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil or the cost to consumers at the pump. We are in this mess because of years of doing the wrong thing, and it's time for a change. We need to use less oil by increasing fuel economy, increasing funding for public transportation and planning for better transportation systems.

How You Can Help

President Obama must drop plans to drill in more than half of Florida's Gulf waters.

Click here to tell the Obama Administration: drilling is too dirty and too dangerous for Florida.

Brief Summary

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.

Watch Environment Florida Director Mark Ferrulo on the CBS Evening News about offshore drilling.