Offshore Drilling - Oceana

Climate and Energy

Offshore Drilling

Opening new areas to offshore drilling poses dangerous and unacceptable risks.

Overview

Offshore drilling for oil and gas threatens marine life, and pollution from burning those fossil fuels is the leading cause of climate change and ocean acidification. Oceana is working to prevent the expansion of offshore drilling in the United States.

We must stop expanding oil drilling operations into new areas like the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. Atlantic coastal economies depend on oil-free beaches; and clean, renewable sources of energy like offshore wind would provide far more jobs than oil drilling. Drilling in the remote Arctic is especially risky, as spills would destroy pristine habitats and be very difficult to contain or clean up.  Also, the burning of fossil fuels is the leading source of carbon emissions to our atmosphere, and those emissions lead to global warming and ocean acidification.

Drilling in deeper and more remote waters increases the risk of spills, which can irreversibly damage the ocean, and threaten coastal businesses and people’s way of life. The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster shows that no amount of oil is worth the results of a disaster. Where we have drilled, we have spilled, but oil interests are still pushing for access to areas that had until now been free of that threat.

Oceana is working to protect the Atlantic Coast and the Arctic Ocean from the oil industry’s thirst for drilling. Using grassroots organizing, policy work, legal action and media advocacy, Oceana is making sure our last pristine places stay safe, beautiful and oil-free.