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A broken pipeline connected to an offshore oil platform less than three miles off the coast of Huntington Beach has poured more than 126,000 gallons of crude into California coastal waters, harming wildlife and posing a danger to public health. Huntington State Beach is home to a number of species of birds, and Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr said the spill is a "potential ecological disaster," not to mention a public health emergency as oil has started washing up on the shores near the city of 200,000 people and the smell of diesel and tar accompanies clumps and rings of oil washing onto the beach with the waves.
Unfortunately, the spill is not the first to occur off the California coast. Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley whose district includes Huntington Beach said, “We can get this cleaned up sooner and better than in prior oil spills, but that doesn’t mean it’s OK that this happened. Someone has to be held accountable for how this happened.”
This incident is a painful example of the fact that while no new offshore oil drilling has been approved in federal waters off the California coastline since 1984, disasters can happen any time. Miyoko Sakashita, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Oceans program said in a statement, “This oil spill is a tragic reminder that offshore drilling is a devastating threat to our coast and its wildlife. I’ve seen the aging oil platforms off Huntington Beach up close, and I know it’s past time to decommission these time bombs. Even after fines and criminal charges, the oil industry is still spilling and leaking into California’s coastal waters because these companies just aren’t capable of operating safely. The only solution is to shut this dirty business down.”
It doesn't appear that the Biden administration is particularly interested in shutting down offshore drilling; just last week the administration announced it is offering leases on more than 80,000,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas companies on November 17. The sale, which was originally planned by the Trump administration, could generate more than one billion barrels of oil over the coming decades. The Center for Western Priorities' Deputy Director Aaron Weiss pointed out the risk of this auction, saying, “Oil companies are woefully unprepared for the effects of climate change. Hurricane Ida left a trail of destruction in the Gulf this summer, causing dozens of oil spills. Now President Biden is giving the green light to even more drilling, setting America up for another Deepwater Horizon.”
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If young Americans do not have a right to a livable world—a world in which all the other rights guaranteed in the Constitution have meaning—what are their other rights actually worth?"
