No More Spills — Tell the US Senate We Need Clean Energy and Climate Legislation Now

The Gulf Coast oil disaster is already having a profound impact on people's lives and jobs and threatens our oceans and all kinds of life in the sea. First, we need to clean up this disaster and ensure that BP is held accountable. NRDC has sent a team of experts to the Gulf to document the environmental and health impacts of the spill and to advocate for every possible action to limit the damage to public health, marine life and coastal ecosystems.

You can learn what our team is doing, learn more about the disaster and find out what immediate steps we need to take at NRDC's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill resource page. 

But, we need to make sure we won't have more disasters like this in the future, and the the only way to truly minimize the risks of major oil spills is to minimize our reliance on oil. In a letter to President Barack Obama, NRDC President Frances Beinecke said

The best protection we have against offshore accidents is to end our dependence on oil. We simply don’t have to jeopardize our oceans, fishing industry, tourism business, and rich coastal ecosystems in order to fuel our cars and trucks. We can pass clean energy and climate legislation--legislation that will slash our oil reliance by spurring innovation in cleaner solutions--things like more efficient cars and plug-in hybrids.

That's why I hope you'll join NRDC in sending a clear message to the US Senate to support and pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that cuts our dependence on oil, puts a firm limit on global warming pollution and ensures this type of accident doesn’t happen again.

As my colleague Dan Lashof notes, Senator Harry Reid and columnist Tom Friedman (among others) are saying the oil spill disaster may be the shock that the Congress needs to at long last take concrete steps to move the US forward.

We've setup an action page that makes it easy to get this message to your US Senators. Please take a moment now to write them and help us prevent future oil spills and put the US on a path to a cleaner, safer and energy-independent economy.