Oceana Reacts to Newly Scheduled Lease Sale in Central Gulf - Oceana

Oceana Reacts to Newly Scheduled Lease Sale in Central Gulf

Press Release Date: January 26, 2012

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Anna Baxter | email: abaxter@oceana.org
Anna Baxter

Oceana, the largest international advocacy group working solely to protect the world’s oceans, released the following statement from senior campaign director Jacqueline Savitz following the announcement of the newly scheduled lease sale in the Central Gulf of Mexico on June 20:

“Scheduling a lease sale in the Central Gulf while the environmental impact statement is still out for comment is emblematic of the ‘devil-may-care’ attitude that the Administration has continually taken with regard to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Central Gulf was ground zero for the 2010 BP oil disaster, the worst accidental oil spill in world history.  Much of the oil is still in the Gulf, some fishermen still can’t catch enough to stay in business, and we still don’t know the full impact of the spill on marine life, including endangered species like sea turtles. Worse yet, the safety failures that led to the Gulf Spill have not been addressed, and drilling remains as risky as it was before the spill.

While the Administration claims to care about job creation, in this case it is trading away good long-term jobs in the tourism and fishing industries, for fewer short-term, high-risk jobs in the oil and gas business.  As was pointed out in Florida’s Republican debate on Tuesday, this is a bad deal for Florida and other gulf states.”