In an attempt to push through a dirty
offshore oil drilling proposal just before the recess, House leaders are
including the Senate offshore drilling bill (S. 3711) in a huge tax and trade
bill that will likely be voted on later today or tomorrow. Earlier this week,
House Republican leadership withdrew its attempt to pass S. 3711 because they
didn’t have the two thirds votes they needed to pass the bill under suspension
of the rules.
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 pristine beaches off the
coast of Florida. 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 backwards
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.
