West Coast opened up for oil spills, pollution, economic disaster by present administration

Bought an electric car yet? Opening of our coasts comes the day after safety measures put in place from Deepwater Horizon disaster were removed by the current administration to save oil companies $$$$$. What could possibly go wrong?  

“We’ll fight them in Congress, on the beaches, in the courts and at the ballot box,” Huffman said. “I’m confident we’ll defeat this dangerous plan.”

 

Trump advances offshore drilling

Shift from Obama-era policy could open up California coast, Arctic

NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.

The two most likely targets for oil drilling on the North Coast are basins located off Bodega Bay and Point Arena, said Richard Charter of Bodega Bay, who’s been an offshore oil drilling opponent since the 1970s. The leases announced Thursday apply to the entire California coast.

The federal proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental rules in an effort to promote energy production.

While the plan puts the administration squarely on the side of the energy industry and against environmental groups, it also puts the White House at odds with a number of coastal states that oppose offshore drilling. Some of those states are led by Republicans, like Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, where the tourism industry was hit hard by the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in 2010 that killed 11 people and spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Scott vowed on Thursday to protect his state’s coast from drilling, saying he would raise the issue with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.

 

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