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GOP Leadership Wants to Drill Here, There, and EVERYWHERE

On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee will mark-up three bills that would require the Administration to drill, baby, drill, and use the revenues from the expanded drilling to fund the transportation bill. If enacted, the proposal, at best, would...

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GOP Leadership Wants to Drill Here, There, and EVERYWHERE

By Elly Pepper, January 31, 2012

On Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee will mark-up three bills that would require the Administration to drill, baby, drill, and use the revenues from the expanded drilling to fund the transportation bill.

If enacted, the proposal, at best, would produce less than 1% of the revenues needed to fund the transportation bill at the cost of opening virtually every acre of our outer continental shelf (OCS) to oil and gas development.

Indeed, the “Energy Security and Transportation Jobs Act” (H.R. 3410), which the House Republican leadership plans to marry with their version of the transportation bill, represents a staggering assault on our ocean and coasts.  Without regard for the millions of people who depend on a healthy ocean for their livelihoods, such as fishermen and tourism operators, this bill would systematically ensure that we drill off of every coastline in the country.

Here’s a breakdown of the destruction this bill would inflict upon our oceans.

• Title I – Title I would require the Secretary of Interior to lease at least 50% of all unleased acreage for oil and gas drilling every five years, essentially doubling oil drilling every five years until our entire OCS is subsumed. To be clear: this bill doesn’t just makes these acres available for drilling—it actually requires leasing to occur, no matter what, until all OCS areas along both coasts are leased. But that’s not enough for House Republicans. No—they want to ensure that this environmental destruction will be completed quickly. That’s why Title I also requires that the OCS off the Atlantic coast, Pacific coast, and in the Gulf of Mexico, and Alaska, be made available for leasing in the 2012-2017 oil and gas leasing program.  That means drilling would commence off of every coastline in our country by 2017 at the latest – from Maine to Florida, off California, in the Gulf, and in America’s Arctic.

• Title II – Apparently, even 2012-2017 is too long for the GOP to wait when it comes to drilling.  That’s why Title II requires lease sales before 2014 in sensitive areas the Administration has put off limits to drilling.  Indeed, the bill would force the Administration to reopen a lease off Virginia that the Administration cancelled in an effort to employ lessons learned from the BP oil disaster.  It would also mandate lease sales off Southern California, despite the fact that President Obama excluded this area from his OCS leasing proposed program for 2012-2017, and prevent the state of California from weighing in on this decision.  Finally, it would mandate drilling in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, which President Obama put under a moratorium in 2010 due largely to the fact that it’s home to a billion-dollar salmon fishery. 

• Title III – Title III would repeal the current legislative moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the Eastern Gulf that is contained in the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA).  Moreover, the bill would mandate three lease sales in the Eastern Gulf—all of which would occur before 2016 and could lie near Florida. 

• Title IV – To top it all off, Title IV forces revenue sharing. Oil and gas resources on the OCS are owned by the American people, and the revenues they generate belong to all Americans. However, TItle IV would send a cut of the income generated from selling our nation’s ocean resources directly to states to use for any purpose, with no accountability to the federal taxpayer.  Worse, revenue sharing serves as an inducement to states to support harmful drilling, regardless of the consequences. 

If the House GOP leadership were serious about jobs, like they keep saying they are, they wouldn’t hold up a transportation bill our country needs with a monstrosity like this that has absolutely no chance of ever passing the Senate.  To call this a jobs bill, is akin to saying the BP oil spill clean-up was a boon to the Gulf Coast economy—not only is it false, it’s just plain insulting.

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Last Week in Whales: Mass Stranding of Dolphins in Cape Cod; Dolphins Are...

News in the world of whales last week (or close to it). Okay, let’s start with some dolphin news. The big news last week was the mass stranding of dolphins that continued throughout the week in Cape Cod.  It started...

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Last Week in Whales: Mass Stranding of Dolphins in Cape Cod; Dolphins Are...

By Zak Smith, January 27, 2012

News in the world of whales last week (or close to it).

Okay, let’s start with some dolphin news.

• The big news last week was the mass stranding of dolphins that continued throughout the week in Cape Cod.  It started on January 14 with the stranding of about 30 dolphins and appears to have ended at the close of the weekend after a total of 90 dolphins stranded, making it the largest dolphin beaching in years.  Rescuers not only saved dolphins that were trapped on shore, but also helped about 300 dolphins swim out of Wellfleet Harbor, where they were at risk of stranding.  Scientists do not know why the animals strand, but it is not unusual for a high number of dolphins to strand this time of year on the Cape, although these numbers are startling. 
• Speaking of dolphins, while I am not a fan of “swim with dolphin” attractions  (I think all marine mammals that are capable of making it in the wild should be released and those that can’t shouldn’t be exploited for our entertainment), if they are going to exist I’m glad that swimming with dolphins provides wounded soldiers some solace. 
• One of the reasons I don’t support dolphin attractions is because of research showing how intelligent and self-aware they are.  This article discusses the research and rightfully questions why such studies aren’t mentioned on SeaWorld’s website (which devotes enormous space to discussing and disseminating other information on marine mammals but omits any research that indicates the intellectual and emotional sophistication of these animals).  It’s unethical to exploit such species for our entertainment in light of this research.  According to Thomas I. White, a Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, “There is now ample scientific evidence that capacities once thought to be unique to humans are shared by these beings.  Like humans, whales and dolphins are ‘persons’.  That is, they are self-aware beings with individual personalities and a rich inner life.  They have the ability to think abstractly, feel deeply and choose their actions.  Their lives are characterized by close, long-term relationships with conspecifics in communities characterized by culture.  In short, whales and dolphins are a who, not a what.”  Yeah, what he said. 
• In defense of our laws protecting dolphins, it’s great to see that the US is appealing a WTO ruling against US dolphin-safe tuna labeling. 
• Finally in dolphin news, a Hong Kong conservation group has set up a DNA bank for the rare Chinese white dolphin.  There are about 2,500 Chinese white dolphins in the body of water between Macau and Hong Kong and experts say their numbers have dropped significantly in the past few years because of the usual litany of problems:  increase in maritime traffic, water pollution, habitat loss, and coastal development.  So, the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong has joined hands with a Chinese university to set up a DNA bank.  According to Judy Chen, the foundation chairwoman, “We hope to offer the scientific community a standardized genetic analysis platform to assess the sustainability of Chinese whit dolphin populations.  The collected datat will provide important reference to governments in the region for developing critical strategies of Chinese white dolphin conservation.”  I hope it’s not too little, too late. 
• Let’s kill seals, they’re eating our cod.  Yep, you read that right.  A study has come out showing seals should be blamed for cod’s failure to recover off Nova Scotia.  Turns out that seals love to eat.  Go figure.  And they’re eating lots of cod.  Of course, this will only support the Canadian government’s proposal to wipe out about 70 percent of the grey seals in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Ah, Canada, just when I thought you couldn’t have an even more horrible conservation record. 
• Very interesting news coming out of Britain.  I’m not going to jump for joy just yet, until I do more research, but it looks live British naval ships could be forced to scale back its use of sonar off Cornwall’s coast to protect dolphins and whales.  If this turns out to be true, it will be a significant step in the right direction.
• A Western Pacific gray whale from Russia just passed through Southern California waters.  The female whale, Varvara, is from a critically endangered population of fewer than 100 individuals.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Western Pacific gray whales use the same breeding and calving area as the Eastern Pacific gray whales (Baja California), although their summer feeding grounds are different. 
• Wow, during the past ten years alone, cetacean bycatch in South Korean waters accounted for 33% of global large whale mortality from bycatch.  According to a new study, Cetacean By-Catch in the Korean Peninsula—by Chance or by Design? by Douglas MacMillan and Jeonghee Han, this high level of bycatch is no accident, but is actually deliberate and supported by South Korean laws that ban whaling outright but allow the sale of whale meat and other products if the whales are caught “accidentally” when fishing.  This legal loophole also encourages the illegal hunting of whales, which can then be sold on the market described as bycatch.  Ugh. 
• In a surprising turn of events, the circle of life is alarming some scientists as orcas and other predators are targeting and killing Steller sea lion pups.  Okay, I jest, it’s not the circle of life that’s alarming them, it’s the status of endangered Steller sea lions and how this predation may set back their chance of surviving as a species.  According to researchers, there are not enough Steller sea lions born each year to rejuvenate their populations, which has declined by 80 percent from a peak about forty years ago.  Markus Horning, a marine mammal expert at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center says, “As the density of more ‘profitable’ adults declines, more juveniles may be targeted and never grow to adulthood, which makes rebuilding their populations problematic.”  It’s a classic vicious cycle.  Let’s hope these sea lions find a way to break it.

Meanwhile, this week in Wales…

First Minister Carwyn Jones says that austerity’s not working.  He’s right; the British government’s economic policy has been a disaster.  Responding to GDP figures showing contraction in the final quarter of 2011, the First Minister said, “The figures confirm what we have been telling the UK Government for some time – their economic policies are simply not working.  The cuts being imposed on Wales are too deep, too fast – and we now face the very real prospect of a double dip recession.”  Yep, heckuva job George Osborne.

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