Offshore Drilling Hearings Culminate with Resounding "No" to Drilling, "Yes" to Safe, Clean energy

April 15, 2009 -- San Francisco, CA - Hundreds of California residents, fishermen, scientists, environmentalists and youth are expected to speak out against proposed offshore drilling plans tomorrow at a public hearing held by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar in San Francisco. This is the last of four hearings and the only one held on the West Coast.

The hearings were held to get feedback on the five-year drilling plan proposed in the waning days of the Bush administration. The plan would open 130 million acres off the coast of Humboldt, Mendocino, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, and San Diego Counties. The proposed plan would also open up more of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas and Bristol Bay Bristol Bay fisheries are valued at $2 billion annually and 40% of US fish catch come from the region. No reliable method exists for cleaning up oil in broken sea ice.

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"At each of these hearings, Americans have sent a clear message that they want clean energy, not more offshore drilling," said Sierra Club president Allison Chin. "There's no reason to put our coasts at risk for more oil spills. We have clean energy technology now that will create jobs, infuse new life into our economy, and end our dependence on oil."

Opponents of drilling will be at to the San Francisco hearing with signs, costumes of dolphins, whales, polar bears and fish, banners, and ‘no drilling’ clothing. Citizens are also calling on the administration to invest in the kind of clean energy that creates good, sustainable jobs.

“The oil industry, apart from all its other problems, generates very few jobs per dollar of investment and is run by executives who generally hate unions, like low wages, and subcontract out everything they can to the lowest-wage workers they can find," said International Longshore and Warehouse Union Representative Lamont Kelly. "We’d all be a lot better off if our elected officials would support a policy of good union jobs, that pay enough to support working families, and have us build the alternative energy systems we need to survive and prosper in the years ahead.”

California residents are particularly sensitive to the impacts from oil development and spills. The Bay Area is still feeling the repercussions of the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill. Santa Barbara recently commemorated the 40 year anniversary of the Union Oil blowout in 1969 that spewed oil into coastal waters for 11 days straight before it could be controlled, coating 35 miles of coastline in oil up to six inches thick. The public outrage from the blowout gave birth to California’s environmental movement.

“We’ve seen oil development and oil spills destroy communities, soil beaches, and kill countless numbers of birds, marine mammals, fish, and other wildlife,” said David Gordon, Executive Director of Pacific Environment. “Californian and Alaskan fisheries, subsistence, and tourism economies are too valuable to sacrifice to offshore drilling. With our coastlines already under threat from global warming, it’s time to develop renewable energy, not perpetuate the problem by drilling for oil.”

Source: Sierra Club