Offshore Drilling

 

Fla. Senators Will Press For 5-Year Ban In Eastern Gulf. According to E&E News, “Florida’s Republican senators plan to push legislation that would temporarily instead of permanently extend the current ban on drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. ‘Ultimately, five years is better than no years,’ Sen. Marco Rubio told E&E News this week, referring to his legislation that would extend to June 30, 2027, a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the region set to expire in 2022. Rubio, who said he doesn’t ever want to see drilling off of Florida’s coast, said nevertheless that a temporary extension of the current moratorium is what’s politically feasible now. ‘It’s the one I think we can pass,’ he said of his legislation, S. 13. The bill also would include Florida in the oil and gas revenue-sharing agreement mandated under the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act between the federal government and Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The House last week passed H.R. 205, which would permanently extend the existing moratorium past its 2022 expiration date on oil and gas leasing in the eastern side of the Gulf of Mexico, east of the region’s Military Mission Line. The area is home to important military testing. Rubio said he opposes drilling because of threats to the region’s ecology and tourism industry, but ‘primarily’ for military reasons. ‘The range we have out there off the Gulf Coast is critical for national security,’ he said.” [E&E News, 9/19/19 (=)]

 

Politicians, Environmentalists Wary Of Efforts To Open Up Florida For Oil Drilling. According to Fort Myers News-Press, “Politicians and environmental groups are bracing for a push to open the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil exploration after a 2022 moratorium expires. The oil industry has for decades had its sights on waters off the coast of Florida. Industry experts and those hoping to open the eastern Gulf for drilling say the oil produced from this area could produce upwards of 18 percent of all the nation’s energy needs for a year. ‘We’re hoping that we would be able to see that ban expire, that would be the best thing,’ said David Mica, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute’s Florida Petroleum Council. But politicians, environmental groups and the tourism industry are pushing now to extend the moratorium, to make an oil drilling ban in this part of the Gulf permanent. … ‘Florida faces an existential threat from offshore drilling,’ Rooney told the House Natural Resources Committee in late May. ‘It will undermine our tourism and recreational economy. Circumstances which could give rise to even the most remote possibility of damage to the west coast because of drilling and exploration in the eastern Gulf create unjustified and insurmountable threats to us.’ In a release after his bill was approved by the full House, Rooney wrote: ‘Floridians overwhelmingly support the idea as evidenced by the 69% approval of a 2018 state constitutional amendment banning offshore drilling off the coast of Florida.’ In August, Rooney was named to an environment subcommittee of the House.” [Fort Myers News-Press, 9/18/19 (=)]

 

Technology, Regulations Not Enough To Keep Florida Safe From Drilling, Critics Say. According to Fort Myers News-Press, “With an administration pushing for more oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling watchdogs say they don’t trust the infrastructure used to collect the oil nor the government regulations and policies that oversee oil and gas companies. ‘I think they really want the industry to regulate itself, so they really don’t want to take an active role,’ said Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University professor and oceanographer. ‘They’re trying to roll back environmental regulations because their philosophy is the economy will be better.’ MacDonald points to the Taylor Energy leak as one example of the industries’ inability to effectively clean up existing oil leaks. One of about 3,000 platforms in the western and central Gulf of Mexico, the Taylor Energy site is about 19 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was toppled by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and oil has been leaking from the site since. Although the Coast Guard has recently capped at least part of the leak, higher estimates suggest about the site has been leaking about 70,000 gallons a day. A recent Coast Guard says the leak is about 30,000 gallons per day. The leak has spanned three presidential administrations, and the Donald Trump version is keen on more drilling. … ‘At the end of the day we’ve been relying on industry self-reporting for pollution events for far too long,’ said Dustin Renaud, with the non-profit Healthy Gulf. ‘We don’t have a system in place to verify or fact-check them (because) that’s directly against their self-interests as a corporation.’” [Fort Myers News-Press, 9/18/19 (=)]

 

New Hampshire Puts In Place Prohibition Against Offshore Drilling In Coastal Waters. According to Cherokee Tribune & Ledger-News, “Gov. Chris Sununu has signed a bill to prohibit drilling for oil and gas in coastal state waters off New Hampshire. The bill was passed by both the New Hampshire House and Senate earlier this year, and signed by the governor during a ceremony last week at Ragged Neck State Park in Rye. Several other states have passed similar legislation in response to a Trump administration proposal to search for energy resources along parts of the U.S. coastline. The governor has expressed confidence that New Hampshire’s 18 miles of shoreline would not be part of the proposal, but stressed the importance of protecting it. ‘While I received assurances from the Trump Administration that drilling would not occur off of New Hampshire’s coast, this bill will help ensure that future generations of Granite Staters have protections in place that prohibit offshore oil exploration,’ Sununu said in a news release. ‘New Hampshire has a long and proud tradition of environmental stewardship, and today’s action to ban oil and gas drilling off of our pristine coastline is another step in the right direction.’” [Cherokee Tribune & Ledger-News, 9/18/19 (=)]

 

Ocean Health & Management

 

Trump: EPA Will Issue Violation Over Homelessness. According to Politico, “The president said EPA will issue environmental violations within a week to the city of San Francisco, claiming — without evidence — that the city’s homeless population is polluting the ocean, the Associated Press reports. According to the AP, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last night that a ‘tremendous amount of waste, including needles, is going through storm drains into the ocean.’ Worth noting: Audrey Cooper of the San Francisco Chronicle tweeted, ‘Nearly all of SF’s storm drains flow to treatment plants, not to the ocean. As a result, SF actually has relatively low non-point source pollution.’” [Politico, 9/19/19 (=)]

 

 

 

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