Congressman Pallone Statement to Interior Department Opposing Testing for Atlantic Offshore Drilling

For Immediate Release:

April 27, 2012

Atlantic City, NJ – Congressman Frank Pallone submitted the following statement for the Department of Interior Public Hearing in Atlantic City, NJ on Programmatic Environmental Impact Study on Seismic Testing in the Atlantic Ocean:

Thank you for having this having this public hearing.  I am in Washington, DC voting today and therefore could not appear personally.  I am glad that the public has this opportunity to inform and shape how the Department of Interior proceeds on the important issue of offshore drilling. 

I am totally opposed to offshore drilling off the Atlantic Coast.  My opposition includes any preparatory steps including seismic testing in our waters off the AtlanticCoast.  The time and resources that the Department of Interior is allocating to seismic testing could be better used on higher priorities that will allow us to move away from dirty fuels and faster achieve U.S. energy independence through renewables such as wind and solar power. 

We all know how important New Jersey's beaches are, not only to residents of our state, but also for countless visitors.  Our beaches are a tremendous resource for those who come here to enjoy them, and they are a huge economic engine for our state.  They're the primary driver of a tourism economy that supports nearly 500,000 jobs and generates $38 billion in economic activities for the state each year.

Seismic testing is the first step in the direction of opening up the Atlantic coast to oil drilling.  Most drilling off the Atlantic coast would be deepwater drilling just like Deepwater Horizon.  Yet in the two years since the BP spill none of the proposals recommended by the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling have been put in place.  There have been no improvements in worker safety regulations that will help ensure that another blow out will not cost 11 human lives.  We need increased environmental review and planning that will ensure valuable fishing grounds and other ecological assets are not destroyed in the event of an oil leak. 

The Department of Interior must halt this process and reconsider its priorities in ensuring American energy independence.  The process you are embarking on will have severe consequences on our ocean environment, beaches, marine resources, and coastal economies in the short term and long term.  Thank you for listening to my comments and I encourage you to fully consider the public’s input here today. 

Rush Holt: Drilling Dysfunction on Our Public Lands

From Congressman Rush Holt's Newsletter:

Together with Ranking Democrat Ed Markey and the staff of the House Committee on Natural Resources, I have worked for more than a year to gather and analyze data about safety and environmental violations committed by oil and gas companies. Our report, “Drilling Dysfunction: How the Failure to Oversee Drilling on Public Lands Endangers Health and the Environment,” has just been released, and its findings are alarming.

The report finds that from 1998 to 2011, more than two thousand violations were handed out by the U.S. Department of Interior to oil and gas companies drilling on taxpayer-owned lands. More than 500 of these violations were classified as “major” by committee staff, including 293 violations related to non-functional blowout preventers and 113 citations for deficiencies in casing and cementing programs.

Yet the enforcement of safety rules was erratic and inconsistent, and all told, the Interior Department collected only $273,875 in fines. That’s roughly equal to a single minute’s worth of oil company profits – the equivalent of levying a 10-cent fine against someone who earns $50,000 a year.

Can anyone seriously argue that these fines are sufficient to deter wrongdoing or that they reflect the very real risks that drilling poses to the environment and public health?

The Longest-Serving Representative with an Unbroken 100% Environmental Rating

The League of Conservation Voters has just announced its 2011 National Environmental Scorecard, and I was pleased to see that they have once again recognized my efforts to protect the environment and public health with a 100 percent rating.

Long before coming to Congress, I was committed to protecting and sustaining our environment – our air, water, land, and the complex web of life. It is that commitment that is reflected in the League of Conservation Voters’ rating. In fact, I am now the longest-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives to have received a 100 percent rating in each year of service.

Too often in 2011, the privileged interests at oil companies and corporate polluters fought to weaken the laws that protect our natural resources, seeking to exploit a public trust for private gain. We must all work to ensure that, in 2012, they do not succeed.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress