Off to ‘polish the marble’ in DC

Laying siege to Capitol Hill

On September 19, 2022, OCR’s mighty staff will be in Washington DC to ‘polish the marble and pound on desks.’ While these are urgent times, I don’t feel particularly cranked up about the visit. The galvanizing event is the marking of the 50th Anniversary of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and a collaborative campaign we’ve been working on with Animal Welfare Institute, NRDC, Oceana, Defenders, and others over this last year. Our group effort is culminating in an MMPA anniversary celebration at the Reserve Officer’s Club on Capitol Hill.

We typically use any of our DC visits to cultivate and maintain contacts with congressional offices, and the various agencies we work with or rub up against in the course of our policy remit. And while we are in wild times, and there are a lot of flashing red lights in our dashboard, next week we’ll be meeting with sympathetic souls discussing how we can make the world a better place.

Although this is not entirely a “Kumbaya” visit. There are a lot of hairy things happening: The transformation of our national Outer Continental Shelf into a Wind Energy Factory, and the continued hegemony of the Fossil Fuel Industry, as evidenced by the passing of the recent “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA).

While the trumpets and banner-waving around the IRA (“Build Back Better Lite”) highlights all sorts of climate actions and infrastructure support for clean energy systems, buried in the bowels of the bill are a few short clauses that entirely destroy the climate effectiveness of the effort.

Sections 50264 hands back a number of leases to the oilmen in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that had been previously blocked. And then there is Section 50265, the “Ensuring Energy Security” clause, which essentially vaporizes our four-year successful campaign blocking the 2017 – 2022 Federal offshore oil leasing plan altogether.

What this clause stipulates is that prior to ANY solar or wind power leases made available to any “sustainable” developers, they need to be offered to fossil fuel companies first – without ANY geographical constraints.

Read that again…

So while we have many offshore wind power leases in the chutes on both coasts, some of which have already been leased, any “Proposed Notice of Sale” (PNS) to offshore (and onshore) wind or solar going forward, needs to be offered to the Fossil Fuel industry first.

So if you were wondering while the American Petroleum Institute had little to say about the IRA, it was probably because they didn’t want to draw any attention to their little victory.

My bet is that should this clause prevail, the oil industry’s first attack will be the Southeast Atlantic, where, working with our conservation colleagues, Oceana, SELC, and South Carolina Surfrider, we successfully thwarted the 2017-2022 five-year leasing plan.

The Oilmen were not happy about this. So their response – leveraged through Joe Manchin, was to erase all of our efforts – but more to the point, bypassing the public’s decision about it.  And slathering on even more insult to this injury, the Department of Interior will provide $23.5M for somebody to do the survey work.

So while Chuck Schumer is giving himself “High Fives,” Joe Manchin is looking like the cat that ate the canary, and the American Petroleum Institute is keeping their mouths shut, we have effectively shot our national climate wad on fossil fuel – again…

 As we go to DC next week, well need to shed some light on these shenanigans, and continue throwing sticks into the wheels of this ongoing disaster.