Congress: Listen To The Enviros
When environmentalists favor offshore drilling, you know public opinion is at a fever pitch.
Houston-based Plains Exploration and Production Company proposed drilling 22 wells from a platform 4.7 miles from land. It made numerous concessions to the local environmental groups that would curtail drilling in about a decade — and in the end even the adamantly “no-drilling” crowd agreed that the deal was beneficial for everyone.
The Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit environmental law firm, endorsed the plan. Abe Powell, president of GOO! (Get Oil Out!), told the Los Angeles Times it was “good for the community.” Terry Leftgoff, a former GOO! executive director, wrote in the Santa Barbara Independent the deal was “a brilliant proposal that finally gives the public something back: the certain removal of four offshore oil platforms, the decommissioning of a notorious industrial plant, and the reversion of rural land subjugated into oil development back into the public trust as parkland.”
The public may be aware that offshore drilling accidents are infrequent and pose little threat to the environment; this awareness is probably part of the reason why growing numbers of Americans support drilling in formerly protected portions of our coastal waters. Last month, a Zogby poll found 74% of Americans support offshore drilling. That’s up from 57% in May, according to a Gallup poll. Even a majority of Democrats support offshore drilling, according to a Rasmussen poll last month.
You listening, Nancy?
