We are at 49 signers and hoping to reach 50!
If you haven't already, please join our sign-on letter to the Senate, voicing our opposition to the harmful oil and gas industry giveaways in the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, which passed out of committee on July 31. The deadline to sign on is extended to EOD TODAY as we hope to reach 50 signers.
Though some provisions in the bill are intended to spur much-needed renewable energy development, there are numerous unacceptable provisions that reverse recent ocean climate progress and weaken protections for vulnerable species and communities, including:
mandated oil and gas lease sales totalling at least 60 million acres each year, undermining the Biden-Harris Administration’s 2024-2029 Five Year Plan;
required leasing in proposed critical habitat areas for the critically endangered Rice’s whale;
90 day fast-tracked liquefied natural gas (LNG) export approvals;
and weakened bedrock environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, limiting affected communities’ ability to engage in judicial review.
These giveaways to the oil and gas industry–which already holds 10.5 million acres of unused leases in public waters–threaten our climate, environmental justice, sustainable coastal economies, fisheries and wildlife. Offshore drilling brings more pipelines, more refineries, and more petrochemical facilities, dumping even more pollution on frontline communities and exacerbating health problems like cancer and asthma. For too long, Gulf of Mexico communities have borne the unfair burden of fossil fuel infrastructure and associated health impacts in their neighborhoods. Long considered acceptable sacrifices to the fossil fuel industry, these communities were sacrificed yet again as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act’s provision linking new leasing for offshore wind to more offshore oil and gas leasing. This cannot continue, and would continue with this bill as written.
Please share with your networks and sign onto the letter here to help demonstrate that the ocean must be a source of climate solutions, not climate problems. The deadline to sign on is EOD TODAY, so that the letter can be sent to the Senate this week.