[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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