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Sierra Club Grassroots Email Express

September 8, 2005

Volume 3  No. 16

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 Take Action: Protect Maine's Oceans

 

1. Contact Your Senators to honor the 2012 moratorium

Not only do drilling proponents plan to include authorization for oil and gas drilling in budget legislation that Congress will be voting on in September, it appears the Interior Department may not honor the 2012 moratorium on offshore leasing for oil and gas.  Interior Secretary Gale Norton wants language attached to a budget bill that would allow oil and gas leasing in a 4 million-acre area 100 miles off Florida's coast.  Such a move would breach the national moratorium and make other coastal waters, marine ecosystems, fisheries, and multi-billion dollar tourist economies vulnerable to disruption and pollution.

 

PLEASE TELL YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES TO VOTE AGAINST ANY LEGISLATION THAT INCLUDES PROVISIONS TO BREACH THE OFFSHORE OIL AND GAS MORATORIUM!  Senator and Representative contact information.

  

 2.  Send in Your Comments

On a parallel track, the Interior Department has announced that it is soliciting public comment on oil and gas resources off California, the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas south "for the development of its 2007-2012 five-year leasing plan for energy development." This solicitation has been termed "a deceptive way" to expand oil and gas leases into waters currently off limits, including Georges Bank. The release states that the Minerals Management Service (MMS), which is soliciting the input, "is also asking the public to comment specifically on whether the existing withdrawals and moratoria should be modified or expanded."

 

You can be sure that the oil and gas industry will make their preferences known -- all of us opposed to oil and gas leasing drilling off our coasts should ensure that our comments also are heard.

 

PLEASE TELL MMS TO EXCLUDE ALL MORATORIUM AREAS IN THE NEXT OIL AND GAS LEASING PLAN !

 

The deadline for comments is October 11. For more information and to comment online go to http://www.mms.gov/5-year/2007-2012main.htm

 

3.  Keep informed - Join the Oceans Activist Network!

Contact Vivian Newman, Sierra Club National Marine Wildlife and Habitat Committee, 207-594-7534, newviv@adelphia.net.  Email her with “Add me to the Oceans List” in the subject.

  

Maine Chapter Sierra Club

One Pleasant Street

Portland ME 04101

phone: (207) 761-5616

fax: (207) 773-6690

email: maine.chapter@sierraclub.org

web: http://maine.sierraclub.org