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Defenders in Action: Congress' Dirty Business
oil drilling puts many species - including this
green sea turtle - at risk.
In a potentially devastating defeat for the environment, the U.S. Senate voted in late summer to open more than 8 million acres of protected waters in the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling.
"If this happens, a major oil spill is a very real possibility," says Robert Dewey, Defenders' vice president for government relations. "Instead of focusing on the dirtiest, most out-of-date energy production methods available, if we focused on clean energy and energy efficiency, such as raising fuel economy standards, we could save hundreds of millions of barrels of oil--and our coastline."
An oil spill could contaminate beaches and harm wildlife, such as dolphins and sea turtles, which depend upon healthy shorelines.
The Senate action followed a June vote by the House of Representatives to lift a 25-year-old ban on off-shore drilling--which would allow oil rigs as close as three miles from shore. As this issue went to press, prospects for the House and Senate to reconcile their two offshore drilling bills were uncertain.
Meanwhile, another bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling was introduced in the House in late July. The refuge, home to caribou and polar bears, has been under threat at least a half-dozen times in the last five years.
This time, bill backers hoped to disguise their anti-environmental stance by proposing to steer revenues toward renewable and alternative energy projects.
But with the recent major pipeline leak only a few miles from the Arctic refuge, it might now be harder to convince Congress to open the area to drilling, says Dewey.
