Environment America is the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work.
Statement of U.S. PIRG Oceans Advocate Mike Gravitz
This afternoon, House Republican leadership withdrew its attempt to pass the Senate offshore drilling bill (S. 3711) because they didn’t have the two thirds votes they needed to pass the bill under suspension of the rules. Meanwhile they have promised to try to pass it some other way before Congress adjourns at the end of the week.
The bill directs the Department of Interior to lease more than 8 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and natural gas development, bringing the messy process of energy development one step closer to Florida’s pristine beaches. The bill also directs almost 40% of the royalties generated in the Gulf to just four Gulf States, resulting in the loss of tens of billions of dollars to the Federal treasury over the next 50 years.
We wish that Congress’s gift list included clean renewable energy and conservation for the American people this season instead of holiday goodies for the oil and gas industry in the last days of the lame duck session. It’s not too late to heed the call of voters across the country for a New Energy Future.
S. 3711 is bad energy policy, bad fiscal policy and bad environmental policy. It is a true trifecta of perverse energy legislation that feeds America’s addiction to oil instead of doing something to solve it.
Americans want real leadership on energy conservation, clean renewable energy, and progress on stopping global warming. Instead this bill gives us more drilling, little energy supply, no conservation, and threatens Florida’s vibrant tourist economy.
