Hundreds rally in Santa Cruz against offshore drilling proposal
Lawmakers, activists, environmentalists and community members rallied in Santa Cruz today in opposition of the new proposal to open the California Coast to offshore drilling.
This comes after President Trump and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced a plan to open 90% of U.S. federal waters to oil drilling and leasing. Under the current plan 94% of those waters are off limits.
Organizers from Save Our Shores say the message on Saturday was a clear one. “Our coast of California, our coast of the United States is just simply not for sale to oil and gas. It’s too precious, it’s too valuable it’s too important to our economy, much more so than more oil,” says Save Our Shores Executive Director Katherine O’Dea.
O’Dae says she is shocked there is still discussion regarding offshore drilling, “we thought we put this battle to bed 40 years ago when Save Our Shores was actually founded to stop oil drilling off our coast, and we put other protections in place, but we’re still under threat.”
A public comment period was opened on January 8th and will be open until March 9th regarding the 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program.
Congressman Jimmy Panetta, one of the speakers at the rally Saturday, says this comment period is crucial for community members to voice their opinions to the federal government. “The fact that we have the largest national marine sanctuary in the continental US right here off our shore, that’s something. Now in order to get that though, it took everybody being involved. Fisherman, businessmen, biologist, conservationist, environmentalist, democrats and republicans. And that’s what it’s gonna take now, people coming together to show the administration that we will continue to protect our coast from oil drilling,” says Panetta.
Officials with the Department of the Interior say this offshore drilling will not only bring billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs to the U.S. but could also bring energy independence and dominance rather than relying on other countries.
State Senator Bill Monning, another speaker at the Santa Cruz event, says there are other ways to do that. “There are alternatives, California is showing the way to clean, safe, renewable energy production. We’ve created 500,000 jobs in safe renewable energy in California,” says Monning.
While oil spills from offshore drilling are rare, Congressman Panetta says it’s a risk that is not worth taking, “we’re not going to take that chance, it’s not worth it. The fact is that what you see out there is what we rely on, we rely on that ocean, that’s our economy, that’s our community and that’s our future.”
