By Al Braden, Austin Environmentalist, Sierra Club Ally and Photographer
Comments on the Trump administration's draft offshore drilling five-year plan, which proposes an unprecedented expansion of offshore drilling into nearly all of America’s waters, are due to BOEM by March 9.
Please consider making your voice heard.
(Note: This piece was originally published and distributed in the Austin Sierra Club group newsletter. All photos by Al Braden Photography.)
Angela Alonzo, Environment Texas Volunteer, at BOEM's Feb. 6 Austin hearing
Trump’s “Drill Baby, Drill” team rolled into Austin February 13th for a ‘listening session’ on their plans for unlimited offshore drilling on both coasts, from Alaska to San Diego, from Maine to Florida to Brownsville.
The scope of this environmental rule and law reversal is beyond imagining. Yellow areas show where offshore drilling will now be legal.
New leases would be sold off during a five-year period covering virtually all of the U.S. continental shelf - regions that have long been protected. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) reports to ‘drill and dig’ Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke who is already busy trashing National Monuments and sacred Native American lands in the Western United States.
BOEM estimates their industry sponsors could dig up as much as 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In 2009, UK researchers published a new estimate in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology that revealed global oil production since 1870 has been 135 billion tons of oil or about 944 billion barrels.*
Twenty three meetings were scheduled across the country from January to early March so that BOEM could sell the plan to the public under the guise of ‘listening.’ Charts and handouts were ready - but no comments were made onsite – only online with a series of computers.
Sierra Club Texas Organizer Dave Cortez signs into BOEM's Austin public hearing on Feb. 6
Responders were urged to be respectful and scientific. Activists, including Sierra Club’s Larisa Mănescu, work the computers in posting opposition to the plant at the Regulations.gov website.
Left to right: Katie Aplis (Texas Sierra Club Comms Intern); Larisa Manescu (Texas Sierra Club Comm Coordinator); David Heroy (Teacher at Headwaters School) and Susan Lippman (Austin Environmental Justice Activist) in background
Comment actions can make a difference if enough respond.
Adrian Shelley, Public Citizen Texas, asked questions about rig safety and inspections that were difficult for staff to answer. Roughly 120 inspectors patrol the current offshore drilling facilities, leaving long periods of time between carefully scheduled and pre-notified inspections. Additional inspectors to handle the potential increase in offshore drilling activity were not defined.
Adrian Shelley (right), Director of Public Citizen Texas
Submit comments here and attach up to 10MB of supplemental information.
Locally, Texas Sierra Club, Public Citizen and Environment Texas are leading the opposition and will have information on future actions.
Cyrus Reed, Texas Sierra Club Conservation Director
Perhaps the best quick reference is from USA.Oceana.org on grassroots opposition, and USA.Oceana’s fact sheet on the issue.
Among USA.Oceana’s findings:
- Governors of almost all east and west coast states have expressed concern and opposition to this plan. Florida got an exemption early – still under negotiation – that would protect Florida and presumably the Mira Lago Country Club. California has decreed that they will not permit pipelines to support this activity. Other states are actively fighting the plan.
- 175 cities and municipalities on both coasts have already passed resolutions in opposition to the plan. 41,000 business and 500,000 fishing families have joined in opposition.
- $95 Billion and 1.4 million fishing, tourism and recreation jobs are at risk on the East Coast as well as an estimated $56 Billion and 500,000 jobs on the West Coast.
- Department of Defense is concerned with interference in Naval and Air Force offshore operations from rigs and ships related to oil exploitation.
- Seismic airgun blasting could injure and disrupt as many as 138,000 marine mammals directly, and millions more indirectly as the marine habitat is disrupted.
*Editor's Note: An version of this blog published earlier had erroneously said "In 2009, UK researchers published a new estimate in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology that revealed global oil productionsince 1870 has been 130 billion barrels" but it is actually 135 billion tons.