As the Trump administration moves swiftly to reopen offshore oil and gas fields to drilling, top House Democrats expressed “serious concern” about whether the policy review is being conducted in good faith.
Two ranking Democrats, Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Raul Grijalva of Arizona, demanded in a letter sent Tuesday to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to see “all risk assessments and analysis undertaken to determine how lifting the ban on drilling in these areas would not adversely affect fragile ecosystems or damage fishing, restaurant, or tourism interests.”
“We believe the review of the leasing program lays the groundwork to eventually weaken key safety regulations that help prevent oil spill disasters,” the letter said. “In doing so, this action greatly increases the threat of a devastating oil spill to these critical and irreplaceable marine ecosystems.”
Pallone is the ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Grijalva holds a similar role in the Committee on Natural Resources. Both have strong environmental voting records and are frequent critics of the pro-fossil-fuel Republican agenda.
Their letter is part of an emerging pattern among Democrats in Congress who are trying to hold President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks accountable in the policy reviews they are pursuing, especially related to climate change and the environment. Trump has vowed to roll back the main elements of the Obama administration’s climate action plan.
Last Friday, Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of the Interior to reconsider the 2017-2022 offshore oil and gas leasing plan, which temporarily restricts drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. President Obama had also issued an executive order banning drilling indefinitely in these same offshore waters under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953. Trump’s recent executive order directs regulators to also lift that long-term ban, though that effort may be on shaky legal ground.
The Democrats say the areas were put off-limits to protect crucial habitat and waters valued for tourism, fishing and other benefits. The lawmakers cite past studies and reports on these topics, including the agency’s own fact-sheets.
Pallone and Grijalva said that the Interior Department “should require oil and gas companies to use existing leases and opportunities in areas already open to drilling before even considering opening new areas to development.”
They also want to know how a potential reduction in budget in 2018 would impact the review process and why a new planning process is taking place now when there is currently a glut in U.S. oil production.
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
