2011 is the year to ban new offshore drilling and permanently protect Florida and all U.S. coastlines from the dangers of offshore drilling and potential oil spills. Take action today by making a 30 second phone call to your Representative!

Yesterday, Tuesday, January 11th, Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) introduced the “No New Drilling Act of 2011” (H.R. 261). This is the bill Oceana and all our volunteers will focus on gaining co-sponsors onto and pushing through Congress in early 2011. Please make a call to your Representative today and ask a few friends to do the same, details below:

The bill is simple and the goal is, “to amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit the leasing of any area of the outer Continental Shelf for the exploration, development, or production of oil, gas, or any other mineral.”

(For more details on the bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-261)

The Outer Continental Shelf includes waters off the Pacific, Atlantic, Alaskan coasts and the entire Gulf of Mexico. A good map of the Outer Continental Shelf waters is located here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Continental_Shelf

To pass this bill means there will be no new offshore drilling and we won our campaign, but we have a lot of work to do before we celebrate. First we need Florida members of the House of Representatives to co-sponsor the bill; then we need the bill to pass the House, then pass the Senate, then finally get signed by the President.

We can get started on our campaign today by making calls into Florida Representative’s offices and urging them to co-sponsor and support H.R 261- the “No New Drilling Act of 2011” introduced by Representative Pallone. Let them know you’re a Floridian that wants to see offshore drilling banned in 2011!

Our initial targets to be co-sponsors of this bill are:

1. Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz of Florida’s District 20 including: Wilton Manors, downtown Fort Lauderdale, Plantation, Davie, Weston, Aventura, Sunny Isles, and portions of North Miami Beach. Check out the district map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FL20_109.PNG to see if Representative Wasserman Shultz is within your district. If so you should give her a call today!

Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz: 1-866-306-3420

2. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida’s District 18 including: Miami Beach, the city of Miami, Coral Gables and throughout the Florida Keys. If Representative Ros-Lehtinen is in your district you can give her a call today!

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: 1-866-306-3433
If you have a different Representative than those listed in this e-mail you can call the Congressional Switchboard at (866) 306-3552 and ask to speak with your representative!

If you have any questions please contact Katie at kparrish@oceana.org or at 305-741-9416.

For our Oceans,

Katie Parrish
Florida Organizer
Climate & Energy Campaign
Oceana | http://oceana.org
Facebook | http://facebook.com/OceanaFlorida
c: (305) 741-9416
kparrish@oceana.org

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/01/11-13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 11, 2011
1:31 PM
CONTACT: Greenpeace
Joe Smyth, Greenpeace Media, 831-566-5647 joe.smyth@greenpeace.org

WASHINGTON – January 11 – In response to the final report released today by the National Oil Spill Commission, Greenpeace USA Research Director Kert Davies released the following statement: “The Commission has leveled a crucial warning with this report, detailing for the history books that which is broken in the oil drilling industry and the bureaucracy which regulates it. The oil industry has not fixed fundamental “systemic” flaws identified by the report and remains unprepared to prevent such accidents and deal with the consequences. The government apparatus that should protect us from oil disasters remains underfunded and understaffed and not up to the task of protecting the nation’s environmental security.

“When, not if, a disaster like the BP blowout happens again, we will all be able to point to the Commission report for that which we failed to avert such a catastrophe. The American public should not be satisfied with ‘we told you so’ when that happens.

“The oil industry will resist the recommendations of the Commission at its own peril. The Administration will do right by taking swift action under existing authority to stop risky offshore oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic and work with Congress to add to the slim government resources available to redouble regulation of existing drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and spill response apparatus nationwide.

“Beyond US borders, the Commission warns that multinational oil companies like BP and Shell and drilling contractors like Halliburton and Transocean operate in oceans worldwide, making this a global threat. Governments around the world should heed the recommendations made by the Commission and examine their own regulatory apparatus around offshore drilling, including any financial liability caps that are in place as is the case in the US. Eliminating the cap on financial liability will more accurately price risky deepwater drilling activity in the marketplace.

“The Commission recommendation for an industry-run safety organization like the nuclear industry set up after Three Mile Island fails to meet the scale of the problem with a commensurate response. The public deserves better. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations has no public transparency and failed to avert the most significant ‘near miss’ partial meltdown of the Davis Besse reactor in Ohio in 2002.

“The Commission recommends participation of NOAA and the USGS in drilling lease review with the Interior Department. We hope this will bolster the consideration of environmental risk by bringing more natural scientists into the room.

“We back the recommendation to spend the majority of money from the BP disaster fines and penalties on environmental restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s the least we can do for the Gulf, its creatures and people, and serves as a warning for those at fault the next time this happens of the true cost of drilling for oil.”
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Independent campaigning organization that uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.

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Special thanks to Common Dreams