A tension-leg type oil production platform burns off unrecoverable gas and leaves a plume of smoke. A deep water oil rig with flare boom.
Any US Citizen living within driving distance of the coast is likely aware of the fact that Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) is proposing that 90% of the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) be made available to the fossil fuel industry. The proposal was released is the 2019-2024 Draft Proposed Program (DPP) in an abrupt turn-around from the settled 2017 – 2022 DPP which was years in deliberation between the public, scientists, and stakeholders – including coastal businesses, fishing interests, and of course the fossil fuel industry.
The deliberations and the synthesis of thousands of public comments on the 2017 – 2022 DPP resulted in the decision that the Atlantic, Pacific, and new tracts in the Arctic would remain unleased. It was a slow process, but in the end it was nice to know that officials who then worked for the public actually took our concerns to heart when deciding how to manage our assets.
Of course this all changed when the Whitehouse was taken over by the fossil fuel industry. Even while DOI is required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to provide the public an opportunity to chime in on policy proposals affecting our public commons, Mr. Zinke does not seem particularly interested in heeding our common voice.
The Administration is also bent on eliminating the very protections upon which public comments hinge with all-out assault on the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And then of course there is the dark proctology being performed on the Environmental Protection Agency…
In yet another departure from the norm, it turns out that with the tens-of-thousands, and sometimes millions of angry public comments on the rude proposals coming out of the Whitehouse, there is not enough staff to read them all, so the reading has been largely relegated to computers, which categorize them into “yea” and “nay” bins (and count all boilerplate responses as “one comment”).
This is not to say that you shouldn’t comment. It is a blunt stick, but it is a stick nonetheless. And when the Administration goes to court to explain themselves (and to court they will go) the sheer bulk of the comments, along with the breadth of perspectives, will all play into how the courts will decide.
So please take a moment and express yourself. Personalize your comments; let Interior know how you will be impacted by their handing the entire OCS over to the oil industry. Give them your thoughts on their leading our nation into the cul-de-sac of fossil fuel, and your concerns about what that means to our climate and our future. “Short, and to the point” is just fine – as are in-depth opinions and technical comments.
Please also CC your comments to your Federal elected officials (US Senators and Representative). They’ll want to keep track, and are more likely to read them and respond.
We submitted our comments yesterday, which are both philosophical and technical.
At this juncture it is hard to tell how all of this will fall, but we are grateful that our legal colleagues at Earth Justice, NRDC, and Oceana are girding their loins for the inevitable legal battle that will take all of our comments into court.
