Needless Ecological Disasters
roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com
By Frances Beinecke - president of the Natural Resources Defense Council:
Offshore drilling is dangerous work, as this tragedy reminds us. It also puts our oceans at risk, as we’re now seeing to our horror. We have an oil slick the size of West Virginia smothering marine life across the Gulf of Mexico and threatening to poison the fertile Mississippi Delta and the ecologically rich coastline along four states. And the best solutions our officials have come up with is to set it on fire. We have to do better than that.
Not only are our coastal ecosystems at stake, but so is America’s ocean-based economy, which each year generates more than $230 billion and provides more jobs than the entire farm sector. Ocean-related tourism alone supplies 2 million jobs — jobs that depend on clean, healthy beaches and abundant fish, not oil slicks.
We simply don’t have to jeopardize our oceans economy in the name of fuel production. If we want to boost our domestic oil supply, we should focus on enhanced oil recovery from existing fields, a process that can supply more than 10 times the amount of oil that could be produced by drilling in our oceans over the same period.
The better use of existing oil fields — together with fuel efficient cars — can help transition us to the 21st century without harming marine life or marine jobs.
To get that transition started, we need to pass comprehensive national clean energy legislation. Such a bill would put this country on the path to sustainable power and fuel while creating American jobs building the energy-efficient cars, homes and workplaces of tomorrow.
It’s been nearly a year since the House passed legislation that will do just that. Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman have worked for six months to draft companion legislation in the Senate. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reaffirmed Tuesday his commitment to moving forward on this vital bill. We must find the political will to get it done.
As we watch the horrific spectacle of yet another oil spill ravage our waters, our wildlife, our lands, and our air, we must ask, what it will take to get our leaders to act? It is time to pass the clean energy and climate bill. |
