Offshore Oil & Gas

 

Trump Says No To Offshore Drilling In Fla. According to E&E News, “President Trump said there would be no oil and gas drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico during a recent trip to Florida, noting the resounding opposition to the expansion of industry near Florida shores and his status as a Florida voter. ‘Well, we’re not gonna be drilling,’ the president said in response to a question from a Spectrum News reporter in Tampa when arriving for a campaign fundraiser. ‘We can’t do that,’ he said. The president noted that he is both a resident and voter in the Sunshine State. ‘The people of Florida just don’t want it,’ he said. ‘You know, there are some states that don’t mind it, but Florida does.’ Trump also referenced an order he said he had signed barring drilling. It was unclear what he meant. A request for comment from the White House was referred to the Interior Department, which oversees offshore leasing and development. ‘The president’s remarks speak for themselves,’ said Conner Swanson, Interior spokesman. Trump’s comments were quickly flagged by conservation groups. Oceana campaign director Diane Hoskins said it was ‘encouraging’ to hear from the president on this issue but that the off-the-cuff comments were not ‘official protections.’” [E&E News, 8/6/20 (=)]

 

Trump Says No Drilling In Eastern Gulf Of Mexico. According to Panama City News Herald, “In what may turn out to be good news for efforts to keep oil and gas exploration out of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, to protect both the environment and a military test range that spans the area, President Donald Trump is on record saying that there won’t be any drilling in the area. Speaking exclusively with Spectrum News, a Charter Communications cable news product, after stepping off of Air Force One in Tampa on Saturday, Trump alluded to an order he said he had put out some time ago on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Trump was responding to this question from Holly Gregory of Spectrum News, who asked: ‘And you know how important our coast is and tourism. Would you be willing to commit to no drilling in the eastern Gulf? You know the situation with that.’ Trump responded, ‘Well, we’re not gonna be drilling, and I’ve already put out that order — actually quite a while ago. But we can’t do that. And the people of Florida just don’t want it. You know, there are some states that don’t mind it, but Florida does. And I live here too, and I vote here. And I will tell you that’s not going to be happening.’ Trump’s position is bolstered by a Wall Street Journal story from last year, in which U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said that a Trump administration proposal to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling had been shelved indefinitely.” [Panama City News Herald, 8/6/20 (=)]

 

Marine Renewable Energy

 

GE To Use Supercomputer To Study Offshore Wind. According to Politico, “GE scientists will access IBM’s Summit supercomputer at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a bid to improve efficiencies in offshore wind energy production, the company announced. ‘Working on Oak Ridge National Lab’s Summit System, we hope to learn and make advancements in offshore wind faster than what was previously possible,’ GE Research Aerodynamics Engineer Jing Li, who is leading the effort, said in a statement. ‘At the same time, our project will help drive the DOE’s efforts to build unprecedented exascale capabilities through the ExaWind project.’” [Politico, 8/6/20 (=)]

 

Fisheries & Marine Life

 

Trump's Pitch To Maine Lobstermen Falls Flat. According to The Hill, “President Trump is struggling to win over Maine voters with his recent pledge to lift restrictions for the state’s lobster industry. Trump was beaming when he traveled to the state just two months ago to tell lobstermen he was reversing protections for some 5,000 miles of ocean territory in a bid to open it to fishing. ‘You’re going to go fishing in that area now that you haven’t seen for a long time,’ Trump said at a roundtable with representatives from Maine’s fishing industry. ‘Lobstermen and seafood producers, I want to just congratulate you.’ But the state’s lobstermen aren’t celebrating. That’s because the area Trump aims to reopen is 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod — far beyond the reach of Maine’s day-boat lobstermen. ‘This doesn’t help the Maine fisherman at all,’ Leroy Weed, 79, who has had a lobster license since he was 10 years old, said of Trump’s reversal of protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off of Cape Cod. ‘There isn’t a boat in this harbor worth $2 million that could go out there and compete,’ Weed said, pointing out to Stonington’s horseshoe-shaped cove, home to the state’s most productive lobster port. Most of Maine’s lobstering takes place within three miles of shore, and even those with a federal license don’t typically travel more than 30 miles offshore.” [The Hill, 8/6/20 (=)]

 

Climate Change Could Undermine A Scientist's Lifelong Work Of Protecting Fish. According to Yale Climate Connections, “Andrew Rosenberg has always felt most at home near the sea. ‘I grew up on the ocean,’ he says. ‘I’ve been sailing since I was two years old…. I knew whatever I was going to do, I was going to work on the ocean.’ He made good on that promise. He earned degrees in fisheries science, oceanography, and biology, and has studied and promoted ocean health for more than 40 years. In the ‘90s, Rosenberg worked for the National Marine Fisheries Service. There, he helped develop regulations to address overfishing in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. He says fish populations have slowly started to recover. But now, climate change threatens to undo that progress. ‘I spent a lot of my career and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on trying to end problems of overfishing,’ Rosenberg says. ‘And now we have another major human-impacts problem that might wipe out those accomplishments.’ The Gulf of Maine, where Rosenberg lives, is warming faster than almost any other spot in the world’s oceans. Species such as lobsters and clams are already moving north or to deeper, colder waters. So Rosenberg says preventing overfishing is no longer enough. To protect ocean ecosystems, the world must limit global warming.” [Yale Climate Connections, 8/5/20 (+)]

 

Ocean Health & Management

 

Surface Clean-Up Technology Won’t Solve Ocean Plastic Problem, According To Study. According to Forbes, “Clean-up devices that collect waste from the ocean surface won’t solve the plastic pollution problem, according to a new study. Researchers compared estimates of current and future plastic waste with the ability of floating clean-up devices to collect it – and found the impact of such devices was ‘very modest.’ However, river barriers could be more effective and – though they have no impact on plastic already in the oceans – they could reduce pollution ‘significantly’ if used in tandem with surface clean-up technology. The study was conducted by the University of Exeter, the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Jacobs University and Making Oceans Plastic Free. It focusses on floating plastic, as sunk waste is difficult or impossible to remove depending on size and location. The authors estimate that the amount of plastic reaching the ocean will peak in 2029, and surface plastic alone will hit more than 860,000 metric tonnes – more than double the current estimated 399,000 – by 2052 (when previous research suggested the rate of plastic pollution may finally reach zero). This is to say nothing of the micro-plastic problem.” [Forbes, 8/5/20 (=)]

 

 

Please do not respond to this email.

If you have questions or comments please contact mitch@beehivedc.com