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Sierra Club Grassroots Email Express
July 25, 2006
Volume 4 No. 11
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Protect Our Coasts

Tell Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to Protect our Coasts by opposing S. 3711!

THE ISSUE

Not only does this bill lift the moratorium on drilling in a huge (6.3 million acres), currently protected area in the Gulf of Mexico, it could jeopardize every other coastal state. The House has already passed an expansive bill that puts the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts on the chopping block. If the Domenici bill passes the Senate, it will certainly get much worse and the protections much weaker in a House-Senate conference committee, with our wetlands, fisheries, beaches and coastal economies the losers.

This Wednesday, July 26, the US Senate will proceed to consideration of S 3711, a bill authored by Florida's Senator Mel Martinez that would open 8 million acres of Florida's Gulf Coast waters to offshore drilling rigs, while lifting the bipartisan congressional moratorium and year-2012 executive leasing withdrawals on 6.3 million acres. The Florida Gulf coast would receive, in exchange, hypothetical protection until 2022 out to 125 miles from shore, unless a subsequent session of Congress reverses such protection.  Within this "protected" area, however, 98 non-producing nine-square mile oil and gas leases could still be developed, some only 11 miles from shore, unless the lessees decide they want to swap their holdings for new leases further offshore.   The Atlantic coast of Florida would receive no protection at all, and four states, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas would each get tens of billions of dollars in federal revenues from offshore leases.  No other coastal state would receive protection or money. 

The adoption of the Senate bill would, unfortunately, open the path for a subsequent negotiation with the House of Representatives, called a Joint House-Senate Conference.  In this Conference Committee, the most dangerous parts of HR 4761, Representative Pombo's "Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act" would be combined with the Martinez bill.  The result of that Conference Committee would almost certainly include the lifting of the 25-year congressional offshore leasing moratorium nationwide, and the removal of executive leasing deferrals, first put in place by former President George Herbert Walker Bush, that would otherwise protect the US west coast, east coast, Florida's Gulf coast, and Alaska's fishery-rich Bristol Bay from offshore drilling until 2012. The vote in the Senate this week will therefore decide the fate of virtually the entire US coastline, from the rocky shores of Maine to the beaches of Santa Monica Bay. 

Now is the time to weigh in with your our US Senators on this issue, and ask that they oppose S 3711 as a blatant giveaway from the federal treasury, and as the ultimate threat to the longstanding tradition of protection for America's coastal-dependent economies and most valued coastlines.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

The stakes for our coasts, marine waters, and fisheries could not be higher. Politicians in Washington, D.C., want credit for doing something about high gas prices while taking no real steps to solve our energy problems. Right now Congress is considering a bill that would open up America's coasts to polluting and dangerous offshore drilling while refusing to address smart energy solutions.  Worse yet, if this bill passes the Senate it will go to a conference committee with an even worse bill passed by the House

CALL MAINE'S SENATORS OLYMPIA SNOWE and SUSAN COLLINS AND ASK THEM TO OPPOSE S. 3711: the Domenici offshore drilling bill.  Please call Senator Snowe and Senator Collins TODAY and tell them to help defeat the Domenici offshore drilling bill and to fight for energy solutions that will save American families money and cure our oil addiction.

Senator Susan Collins: (202) 224-2523
Senator Olympia Snowe: (202) 224-5344

Tell them that this drilling bill continues to lead America away from smart energy solutions and won't break our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
. Instead of allowing oil companies to drill off our coasts, our Senators should be leading the fight in Washington for better gas mileage and clean energy. 
. Bottom line: any new offshore drilling is a step in the wrong direction. Drilling won't help American families struggling at the pump --
it's more of a giveaway to Big Oil than an answer to high prices. It is estimated that drilling off of Florida's coast would only bring 47 days of oil and 4 months of natural gas, and we wouldn't see any of it for at least 7 years.

For more information contact the Chapter Office at 761-5616 or by email at maine.chapter@sierraclub.org.  

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