Last week, the Biden administration released a draft plan for offshore drilling in public waters over the next five years. Contrary to promises made by President Biden, it includes 11 new lease sales: 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and one in the Cook Inlet of Alaska.
This draft is dangerous, but it’s just a draft.We have 90 days to flood the administration with public comments demanding a final plan with ZERO new leases for offshore drilling.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) quietly released their draft plan on Friday, July 1, right before the holiday weekend. They hoped no one would notice. But we did!
Offshore drilling hurts coastal communities which already bear the brunt of climate impacts like rising sea levels and stronger storms. Oil spills and pollution disproportionately harm Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, and can have disastrous effects on public health, not to mention the tourism and fishing industries that coastal communities rely on.
We can’t allow communities along the Gulf Coast and in Alaska to be sacrificed to the oil and gas industry. President Biden has the authority to end new leases for offshore drilling, but it’s up to us to force him to act.
Last week’s announcement explicitly said that the final offshore drilling plan could include no new leases. We now have a 90-day comment period to generate as much public pressure as possible to make sure that the final plan includes ZERO new leases! Even if you’ve sent a message to the White House before, it’s important to do so again so it can be counted as an official public comment.
Food & Water Watch is working in coalition with hundreds of organizations from across the country to demand that President Biden reject fossil fuels. There are many things that the president can do to transition off fossil fuels, and ending new offshore drilling is a crucial step.
The next 90 days are critical. President Biden must be held accountable to his promises and take bold action to protect communities and the climate from offshore drilling.
Food & Water Watch and its affiliated organization, Food & Water Action, are advocacy groups with a common mission to protect our food, water and climate.
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