Congress’s Chance to Protect Our Coasts

Here’s what we can expect:

In the House

The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing called Protecting Coastal Communities and Ocean Resources from Offshore Drilling in the subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, chaired by Rep. Lowenthal of California. The House has traditionally led on offshore drilling and continues to do so with discussion of the following six bills:

• Rep. McEachin’s Offshore Accountability Act H.R. 570 requires offshore drilling operators to report failures of critical safety systems directly to the Secretary of the Interior among other things;
• Rep. Brownley’s Offshore Pipeline Safety Act H.R. 2643 addresses the lack of proper oversight of active and decommissioned offshore oil and gas pipelines to ensure the decommissioned pipelines are cleaned up properly;
• Rep. Castor’s Florida Coastal Protection Act  H.R. 2836  would ban oil and gas leasing off the Florida coast and in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico;
• Rep Pallone’s COAST Anti-Drilling Act H.R. 3116  would ban oil and gas leasing and pre-leasing in the Atlantic;
• Rep. Levin’s American Coasts and Oceans Protection Act H.R. 3053 would ban oil and gas leasing and pre-leasing off of Southern California; and
• Rep. Huffman’s North Pacific Ocean Protection Act H.R. 3048 would ban oil and gas leasing and pre-leasing off of Central California, Northern California, Oregon, and Washington.

We expect to hear from scientists, Gulf of Mexico communities, local municipalities, along with surfing and other business stakeholders about the importance of protecting our coasts for health, climate, social, and economic reasons. This diverse panel has the opportunity to speak to the myriad of reasons so many communities are against new offshore drilling.

Now is the time to act on climate, listen to coastal communities, and protect our coasts. Congress is taking action with these bills, but we can’t stop here. We have to protect the Arctic from drilling and begin an offshore oil and gas production ramp down and just transition in the Gulf toward a cleaner energy future. We’re excited to work with Congress and the Biden Administration to act boldly and work toward eliminating all new leasing.

We strongly support this slate of legislation on offshore drilling as an important first step in protecting our coasts. We also want to acknowledge that these representatives' very ability to work on legislation like this is an essential feature of our democracy. And yet certain cosponsors participated in an unprecedented attack on our democratic process. Until those members take responsibility for that anti-democratic vote, we believe their legislative work will always come with an asterisk.

In the Senate