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For the past 25 years, there has been strong, bipartisan support for a moratorium on offshore drilling. In 1981, responding to public sentiment, Congress adopted the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Moratorium, which prevents the leasing of coastal waters off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and Alaska’s Bristol Bay for fossil fuel development.
Each year since then Congress has renewed the moratorium. In 1990, the first President Bush authored an additional level of protection deferring new leasing until 2002, next to him President Clinton extended the moratorium to 2012.
But these protections are now in danger of being weakened or overturned by the current Bush administration and its allies in Congress.
Drilling off our coasts is not the way to achieve energy independence or bring down gas-pump and home heating prices,” says Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope. “We don’t need to sacrifice our beaches and coastal waters to meet America’s energy needs.

Downside

Tourism, commercial and sport fishing, and real estate generate billions of dollars of economic activity and millions of jobs in America’s coastal communities.

Between 1980 and 1999, three million gallons of oil spilled from offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico—the equivalent of 400 gallons a day—while tens of thousands of pounds of mercury have been dumped around oil rigs in the Gulf.

Offshore drilling could turn our beaches and coastal waters into an industrial zone.”

The city of Virginia Beach alone attracts more than three million visitors each year, generating $700 million in tourist spending and providing some 11,000 jobs within the city. Any potential benefits of drilling are not commensurate with the risks involved.”

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. Poll conducted in late June, 73% strongly or mildly favor increased offshore drilling for oil and natural gas