[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 7 (Thursday, January 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S151-S152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Offshore Drilling

  Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Trump 
administration's recent proposal to expand offshore drilling to more 
than 90 percent of U.S. waters. This handout to Big Oil executives puts 
short-term corporate profits ahead of the long-term health and 
livelihood of America's coastal families, and it ignores the growing 
threat posed by climate change.
  This administration is too weak-kneed to stand up for American 
families, too weak-kneed to say ``enough is enough'' when Big Oil 
executives demand more, and Big Oil executives keep demanding more 
because they don't like being told that any area is off limits.
  Big Oil didn't like being told that the extraordinary natural, 
cultural, and historical value of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-
Escalante made them off limits for fossil fuel development. So 
President Trump opened up much of the previously protected land for 
future drilling and mining.
  Big Oil didn't like being told that the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, one of America's last untouched expanses of wilderness, was off 
limits. So President Trump and this Republican Congress included a 
provision in the Republican tax bill to allow drilling for the first 
time in this pristine reserve.
  Big oil didn't like being told that our coasts, which provide the 
homes and livelihoods for millions of Americans, are off limits. So the 
Trump administration, faithful as ever to whatever Big Oil wants, 
issued a proposed offshore drilling plan that would allow drilling in 
more than 90 percent of America's coastal waters. In doing so, the 
Trump administration is threatening the Atlantic coast with unwanted 
oil drilling for the first time in more than 30 years, threatening to 
introduce new drilling rigs to the Pacific coast for the first time in 
30 years, threatening the eastern Gulf of Mexico with drilling for the 
first time in more than 10 years, and threatening to illegally reopen 
portions of the Arctic for drilling in areas that were permanently 
protected in 2016.
  Our coasts are working waterfronts supporting hard-working families. 
This unprecedented expansion of offshore drilling endangers hundreds of 
thousands of jobs that depend on the health of our oceans. In 
Massachusetts, there is shipping in and out of Boston, fishing from 
Gloucester to New Bedford, and tourism and small businesses on the Cape 
and the Islands. The ocean is our lifeline, as it is for so many 
coastal States and towns around the country.
  The multibillion-dollar coastal economy has been a key part of the 
American economy since our Nation's founding. Our coastal communities 
are united in opposition to an expansion of offshore drilling. They 
understand the risks that Big Oil imposes on them.
  Our coastal communities remember when the BP-Deepwater Horizon 
oilspill occurred in 2010. One offshore oil well blew and caused the 
Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to explode, and what was the 
consequence? It killed 11 workers, injured 17 more, and unleashed one 
of the worst environmental disasters in human history. Nearly 5 million 
barrels of oil gushed into the ocean, contaminating more than 1,300 
miles of coastline and nearly 70,000 square miles of surface water. 
Millions of birds and marine animals died from exposure to the oil and 
other toxic chemicals. The gulf fishing industry lost thousands of jobs 
and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and the spill 
devastated the gulf's coastal tourism economy. The environmental and 
economic devastation hit working families and small businesses across 
the entire region.
  A commission formed to investigate the BP oilspill concluded that 
there were ``such systematic failures in risk

[[Page S152]]

management that they place in doubt the safety culture of the entire 
[offshore drilling] industry.'' The Federal Government vowed to crack 
down on the offshore oil industry that had been cutting corners at the 
expense of worker safety and environmental safety. The Bureau of Safety 
and Environmental Enforcement studied ways to improve oil rig 
inspections and issued new rules of the road to try to prioritize 
safety.
  But President Trump has abandoned that safety-first approach. He 
ignores the lessons of the BP oilspill. Instead, he listens to his Big 
Oil friends. Last month, the administration began rescinding key safety 
regulations designed to protect our coastlines from another BP spill 
disaster. I just want to give one example.
  In 2016 the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement 
implemented new rules to require independent, third-party certification 
of safety devices on oil rigs. It is not a bad idea to get someone 
independent to take a look at oil rigs before people put their lives at 
risk and hundreds of thousands of people could lose their livelihoods 
if an accident occurred--not a bad idea. But the Trump administration 
has said that this commonsense approach is an ``unnecessary . . . 
burden'' on industry. Just to be clear, this so-called burden would 
amount to less than a penny on the dollar for an industry that already 
enjoys tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies. That is less 
than a penny on the dollar to protect the livelihoods and maybe the 
lives of people living on our coasts.
  The Trump administration's insistence on padding the pockets of Big 
Oil while small coastal towns are left carrying all the risk is a 
perversion of how government is supposed to work, but this is what 
happens when the Republican Senate allows leadership positions at the 
Department of the Interior to be filled with industry insiders who 
reward their past--and, in many cases, their future--employers, rather 
than serving the American people.
  American families deserve forward-looking leadership that builds for 
the future and ensures that America will lead in the necessary fight 
against climate change, but President Trump thinks leadership is 
handing over management of our public resources to the Big Oil 
executives who are looking to stuff their pockets while they can, and 
he chooses to ignore the writing on the wall.
  Our planet is getting hotter, and 16 of the last 17 years were the 
hottest on record. Our seas are rising at an alarming rate. Our coasts 
are threatened by furious storms that can sweep away homes and 
devastate even our largest cities. Many communities are just one bad 
storm away from complete devastation. Our naval bases are under attack, 
not by enemy ships but by rising seas. Our food supplies and our 
forests are threatened by an endless barrage of droughts and wildfires.
  The effects of man-made climate change are all around us, and things 
will only continue to get worse at an accelerating pace if we don't do 
something about it. Will addressing climate change be tough? You bet it 
will. We will need to retool, to install offshore wind turbines instead 
of President Trump's offshore drilling rigs. But there is no country 
and no workforce in the world that is more willing and more able to 
tackle the challenges of climate change head-on than the United States 
of America. Yes, it is hard, but it is what we do. It is who we are.
  The American people deserve leadership that knows the strength of the 
American people; leadership that believes in the innovative resolve of 
American workers ready to build clean energy infrastructure of the 
world; leadership that will deliver a clear message to the Big Oil 
executives, hell-bent on protecting their own short-term profits and 
who don't like being told that a place is off limits; leadership that 
will not chain our economy to the fossil fuels of the past; leadership 
that does not ignore the realities of climate change; and leadership 
that does not put our coastal communities at further risk of another 
devastating oilspill. The American people deserve leadership that works 
for their interests, not for the interests of Big Oil.
  I yield to my colleague.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.

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