HOC Calls on Biden & Congress to Refocus on Climate Commitments.
In response to the Biden Administration’s release of the National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2024-2029, (aka the Five-Year Plan), the Healthy Ocean Coalition calls on the Biden Administration to refocus on its climate commitments.
The Five-Year Plan offers the possibility of three leases over the course of the plan, entirely situated in the Gulf of Mexico. While this spares Atlantic, Pacific, and Alaskan waters, it once again places a disproportionate burden on the Gulf’s communities and waters, which already are bearing the brunt of the horrendous impacts from decades of petrochemical industrialization. The fossil fuel industry and the climate crisis it caused and continues to exacerbate disproportionately impacts Black, Latine, Indigenous, and low-income communities. This move reflects the continued environmental racism and prioritization of oil and gas industry profits by our elected officials over holding true to their climate commitments and caring for people.
We also want to remind the Biden Administration of the interconnectedness of everything and time and time again we have seen that where we drill, we spill. It is unacceptable for anyone to drink water laced with oil, eat food contaminated with fossil fuels, breathe the pollution it creates, and have our planet littered with its plastic waste. When we think about things that are wrong and harmful in this world, nearly all roads lead back to Big Oil being the cause. Enough is enough. The Healthy Ocean Coalition believes the appropriate number of new leases is zero and will continue fighting until that number becomes our reality.
Hear what HOC members are saying in light of the 5-Year Plan:
“A single new lease sale for offshore oil and gas exploration is one too many. Any increase in our dependence on fossil fuels just bakes in greater impacts to humanity. The ocean absorbs 90% of the heat from our warming planet and a third of the carbon dioxide released into the air and should be seen and treated as a climate solution, not a source for further climate disaster. We call on the Biden Administration and Congress to stop handing our future to Big Oil and focus on the just and equitable transition to renewable energy.”
“Climate impacts from every new offshore oil drilling lease will obviously be global in nature and cannot be mitigated, to pretend otherwise at this point is not a credible public policy.”