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Offshore oil and gas drilling threatens California's coast

Offshore Oil Drilling Big oil and gas companies and their allies in Washington have for years tried to overturn the oil and gas drilling moratorium on California's Outer Continental Shelf or OCS. The Outer Continental Shelf is the area of the ocean floor that runs from approximately 3 miles from the coastline to about 200 nautical miles from shore.

While there is currently some off-shore oil and gas production off the coast of Southern California, 95% of U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling occurs in the western and central portions of the Gulf of Mexico. Areas that support oil drilling have experienced severe coastal erosion, oil spills and other toxics, and their once pristine ocean is now dotted with massive offshore drilling rigs.

Californians have been vocal and united against expanded offshore oil and gas drilling ever since the devastating 1969 offshore Santa Barbara oil spill which dumped 200,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean and caused an oil slick which spread out over 800 square miles.

In 1981, the U.S. Congress recognized the need to protect America's oceans and beaches and created the Outer Continental Shelf Moratorium, which prevented the leasing of coastal waters for fossil fuel drilling. Every year since then Congress has renewed the moratorium. It currently protects the East and West coasts, the Great Lakes, and portions of the Gulf of Mexico. For over 20 years, Republican and Democratic Congresses, Presidents, and Governors have all agreed upon the importance of protecting our coasts from off shore oil drilling. Until now.

Oil and Gas Drilling
Now, oil companies, encouraged by their friends in the Bush administration want this moratorium lifted. They want to be able to drill for oil and gas off California's coast which would threaten the environment, endanger our health, and harm local tourism and fishing communities. The amount of oil contained offshore is so small that it will have no practical impact on our dependence on foreign oil. We cannot drill our way to energy independence.

Given the environmental costs, the safety issues, the risk of earthquakes and the threats to coastal communities and their economies, expanding oil and gas drilling is simply not worth the risk. We can do more by investing in energy efficient technology today. By making all of our cars and light trucks average 40 miles to the gallon, we can save more oil than we import from the Persian Gulf or could extract from the entire U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, combined. And by using environmental efficient technologies that are available now, we can conserve more energy than could be made from natural gas, without putting our coasts at risk.

What Can You Do?
Click here to send a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger. Thank the Governor for speaking out against increased drilling off our coast and urge him to fight to retire the 37 unexplored leases off our coast.