Offshore Drilling

 

Offshore Drilling Curbs Added As House Churns Through Minibus Debate. According to Politico, “House lawmakers added language related to everything from offshore drilling to Confederate flags to climate change modeling as the chamber continues to work its way through a second minibus spending package, H.R. 3055 (116). Most notable among the nearly 70 amendments considered on the Interior-Environment title, lawmakers adopted two bipartisan measures restricting offshore drilling. One proposal, led by Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), would block activities off the Atlantic coast and passed 247 to 185. The other proposal, sponsored by nearly all of the Florida congressional delegation, restricts drilling off that state’s coasts and passed 252 to 178. A third amendment, led by Democrats and approved by the House by a vote of 238 to 192, would block offshore drilling off the Pacific Coast. ‘We can’t take the greatest resource of our coastal communities and economies for granted,’ Pallone said on the floor. ‘The vitality of our coastal economies is tied to healthy ocean ecosystems.’ A bipartisan amendment barring the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management from issuing permits for oil and gas exploration, including for seismic airgun blasting, in the Atlantic also passed 245-187.” [Politico, 6/20/19 (=)]

 

House Approves Measures That Would Block Offshore Drilling On All But Arctic Coast. According to The Press Democrat, “The House of Representatives passed three amendments on Thursday imposing one-year bans on offshore oil drilling on the Pacific, Atlantic and eastern Gulf of Mexico coasts, potentially restoring the safeguard that protected California’s coast for more than a quarter century. The three bipartisan votes came on amendments to the funding bill for the Department of Interior and other agencies and are protected from a line-item veto by President Donald Trump, who has proposed an aggressive expansion of oil and gas development in the nation’s offshore waters. It also may not need approval in the Republican-controlled Senate, which will produce its own Interior Department appropriations bill. ‘This is the congressional moratorium coming back,’ said Richard Charter of Bodega Bay, a veteran anti-oil drilling activist. ‘Today’s been a miracle, big time.’ The House amendments would prevent the Secretary of Interior from spending any money on pre-leasing or leasing activities related to selling offshore drilling rights to energy developers. Similar House measures protected California’s coast from new oil wells one year at a time for 27 years, ending in 2009 when former President George W. Bush left office. The bans weren’t needed under President Barack Obama.” [The Press Democrat, 6/20/19 (=)]

 

Ocean Ecosystem

 

A Growing Sensory Smog Threatens The Ability Of Fish To Communicate, Navigate, And Survive. According to Science, “Try, for a moment, to be a fish. As you swim through dim waters, you see shapes moving past and watch for threats. You hear other animals calling or producing rasps and crackles by scraping together rigid body parts. The water is a tapestry of smells that reveals predators and potential mates, food, and the route home. Now, imagine that nothing makes sense—the tapestry has unraveled. Smells still reach you, but their meanings are muddled. You listen for calls from your kin, but all you hear is the roar of a passing boat. You can’t tell whether that looming shadow is a friend or foe. When many people think of threats to the world’s fish, overfishing or vanishing reefs might leap to mind. Increasingly, however, scientists also worry about a subtler danger: how human activities might interfere with the senses fish use to perceive the world. Noise from ships and construction, murkier waters caused by pollution, and rising ocean acidification from the buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are all possible culprits. In laboratories and in the wild, scientists study exactly how those factors might affect a fish’s ability to communicate, navigate, and survive.” [Science, 6/21/19 (+)]

 

 

 

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