Add your voice to the grassroots movement to protect our coastlines from offshore drilling! Sign up to participate in Hands Across the Sand on August 4, 2012!

Hands Across the Sand is an international grassroots event that brings people together to oppose new offshore oil drilling and promote a clean energy future. The Surfrider Foundation is an official sponsor of the event and our participation is a cornerstone of our Not the Answer campaign. Last year we were thrilled to join thousands of participants in making our voices heard.

The premise of the event is very simple: on August 4 at 12pm local time people will join hands for 15 minutes on beaches around the world to champion clean energy solutions to our filthy fuels problem. All events are organized locally by volunteers and the event website provides most of the resources that you will need.

So visit the Hands Across the Sand website today and sign up to organize an event at your local beach! (Many beaches go quickly, so don’t delay!) www.handsacrossthesand.com/

With Congress considering legislation to expand oil and gas development off our coasts, now is the time to join the grassroots movement to protect our coastlines from risky drilling practices!

For more information on organizing a local event, please contact Pete Stauffer at (503) 887-0514 pstauffer@surfrider.org.
 See you on the beach on August 4th!

Image: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

The Department of Interior (DOI) has announced plans to conduct seismic surveys off the South and Mid-Atlantic coasts to assess potential oil & gas resources. The proposed surveys will employ loud and damaging technologies and are intended to set the stage for future energy development off the east coast.

Please make your voice heard and tell the Department that you support “Alternative C” (No Action).

Seismic surveys will produce major impacts on marine mammals, sea turtles, fishes and other marine life in the Atlantic ocean. The blasts from seismic airguns are incredibly loud and have been shown to interfere with the feeding, mating, communication, and migration activities of numerous species, including endangered whales.

Furthermore, offshore drilling is inherently polluting and dangerous, yet it will not solve our nation’s energy needs. According to the Department of Energy, fully developing all of our recoverable offshore oil reserves would lower pump prices by exactly 3 cents – and would take twenty years to do so. Such a tradeoff is not worth the risk to our coastal economies, including the tourism, recreation, and commercial fishing sectors which generate billions of dollars in annual revenue on the Atlantic coast.

Please click here to tell the Department that you support Alternative C!

To read DOI’s official announcement: click here

Our friends at Oceana just released a report card assessing the efforts by government and industry to  improve the safety of offshore oil and gas operations and safeguard the environment.  The result, despite some clear recommendations by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling and the National Academy of Engineering, is all Ds and Fs.

The President’s Gulf Oil Spill Commission also put out a report card.  They were quite a bit more generous (after all, would you give yourself a failing grade?), but their grades are still less than stellar, ranging from B to D.

The report slams Congress’ failure to implement a range of recommendations made in the commission’s January 2011 report. Those include ensuring dependable resources for federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, raising the oil spill liability cap significantly and codifying the changes to the Interior Department’s regulatory structure designed to eliminate conflicts of interest.

The House is going in the wrong direction, passing several bills to fast-track drilling that “run contrary” to steps that panel members warn are necessary to ensure safe production of oil and gas.

“Although the administration and industry have made significant progress, Congress has not,” said Bob Graham, one of the commission’s co-chairs. “Two years have passed since the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers, and Congress has yet to enact one piece of legislation to make drilling safer.”

The only recommendation Congress is close to implementing is a proposal to dedicate 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties paid by BP to environmental restoration in the Gulf of Mexico. Even so, only the Senate has passed such a plan, and the House’s proposal is slightly different.