Today President Obama is expected to sign the nation’s first-ever National Ocean Policy. This process started a year ago with the Ocean Policy Task Force and is greatly based on the excellent work of two separate blue ribbon panels, hundreds of meetings between the OPTF and ocean users and stakeholders, and two lengthy comment periods. The NOP is a great step forward for our oceans, coasts and the communities that love and depend upon them. CLF and hundreds of other groups around the country have been working for such a comprehensive approach to better ocean protection and management for years. This is a good day to optimistic about the future.

In one of histories great ironies, the NOP was close to being finalized and signed when the Deepwater Horizon blew up, sank and started one of the nation’s greatest environmental disasters. What could we have done with the foresight of such a disaster?  Mundane phrases like “interagency coordination,” “use conflict,” and “emergency preparedness” take on a whole new meaning than before the BP oil disaster. We have a great opportunity to start to get it right. Congrats and Thanks, Mr. President.

To mark the occasion, CLF issued the following statement:

“Today is a momentous day for America’s oceans,” said Priscilla Brooks, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation’s Ocean Conservation program. “For the first time in this country’s history, we will have a national policy that aligns the great promise of our oceans with the great responsibility for managing them in a coordinated, thoughtful and sustainable fashion. New England has led the charge to balance the ever-increasing interest in our state waters – for commercial and recreational fishing, renewable energy development, tourism, oil and gas drilling and sand and gravel mining, to name a few – with the need to protect wildlife and critical habitat areas so that our region’s oceans will continue to be productive for generations to come. From Massachusetts to Rhode Island to Maine, we are developing ocean management plans that will serve as guides for better protection and management in federal waters across the nation. As the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico reminds us all too plainly, we need to reap our oceans’ tremendously valuable resources with great care. We applaud the Obama administration for its courage in prioritizing this much-needed mandate for protection and restoration of our coasts, oceans, islands and Great Lakes.”

Learn more:
Read the Ocean Policy Task Force’s recommendations>>

Read more about CLF’s work in ocean conservation>>

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Last Friday, CLF filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in support of Amendment 16 in a federal lawsuit challenging the new groundfishery management regulations, which went into effect on May 1, 2010. The lawsuit, brought by the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford and members of the fishing industry, broadly challenges the new fishing regulations – known as Amendment 16 – on a variety of grounds. CLF, which has long fought for a science-based, more balanced system of fisheries management to ensure a sustainable fishing industry, supports Amendment 16 as critical to ending decades of overfishing in federal waters off of New England’s coast. CLF will intervene as a defendant with the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the senior officials of which were both named as parties.

“The new rules introduced under Amendment 16 are game-changing,” said Peter Shelley, CLF vice president and director of its Massachusetts Advocacy Center. “They have to be to achieve the balance that is needed between the size of our fishing fleet and the amount of fish New England waters can produce, if we want a sustainable fishing industry for generations to come. Importantly, the rules also introduce unprecedented levels of flexibility into the system in an effort to help the fleet operate more efficiently and safely.”

The 2010 fishing season introduced the most sweeping set of changes to New England groundfish fisheries since the Magnuson-Stevens Act was enacted in 1976, establishing U.S. jurisdiction on fisheries within 200 miles of the coast. Amendment 16 put into place science-based catch limits and accountability measures to minimize overfishing of key groundfish, such as cod and pollock, as well as a new management system called sector allocation, designed to provide fishermen more flexibility in organizing their businesses.

Shelley continued, “Large management changes such as these do not come without myriad frustrations from unintended consequences that need to be addressed. In order to get to the results the broader fishing and conservation communities want from these new rules, everyone – governments, regulators, fishermen and conservation groups – needs to work together to get it right. The early data from these new rules is encouraging. We need to face the inevitable challenges and see this through.”

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Yesterday US District Federal Judge Martin Feldman revoked the six month moratorium on deep water oil drilling put into place by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The Obama administration immediately announced it would appeal the judge’s decision. Seems the Judge has concern that a halt on the use of 33 rigs already in place “cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.” He disagreed there was a logical conclusion between the ongoing oil geyser and the six month lets-take-a-look-and-see-what’s-up moratorium.

The State of Alaska — which has deemed BP an environmental felon for past spills on that state’s North Slope — sees a logical conclusion between the BP oil geyser and damage to their ocean waters. Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation (not to mention the Coast Guard and the EPA) are concerned that they are shipping so much of their stockpiled oil spill containment supplies to the Gulf of Mexico that they are vulnerable to a potential spill in their state. 

Concern, to put it mildly, is growing across the country about the stark threat that offshore oil drilling places on our oceans and coasts. Several national polls now show a shift in beliefs as a majority of Americans not only oppose offshore oil drilling but are also willing to reduce consumption and improve their own energy efficiency. 

This Saturday tens of thousands of Americans are gathering at hundreds of places across the country to demand a halt to new oil and gas drilling. Hands Across the Sand now has 693 gatherings planned in all 50 states and 21 countries. Saturday, June 26, 11:00am. Go to the beach or coast near you. Join hands at noon. Help take your ocean back.

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Today is the annual celebration of World Oceans Day and this month is officially National Oceans Month. President Obama used the occasion last year to create the Ocean Policy Task Force and directed them to develop a National Ocean Policy and a framework for Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. The task force consists of 24 government entities and they have spent the last year conducting an efficient, thoughtful and thorough processes for policy development. It’s been done exactly how policy should be made.  Now, when the final policy should be ready for implementation the leaders of the task force are buried in 24/7 efforts to stop the BP oil disaster. Is the final National Ocean Policy another victim of the general mayhem caused by the BP oil disaster?  Big Oil strikes again.

Was there ever a better time for a National Ocean Policy? We know that a National Ocean Policy would not have stopped BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster from becoming the worst human caused environmental catastrophe since the Dust Bowl. But the  fact is crystal clear that an ocean policy would have helped with the very crisis management that state and federal governments are dealing with now. It sounds a heck of a lot like what Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen calls “unity of effort.” Prior planning should have required serious impact analysis, included labor practices that reduce safety threats, increased involvement from agencies who are not captured by the oil and gas industry that they are supposed to regulate and established a foundation of conservation that would not reduce ecosystem values to the number of barrels of oil that could be removed out of the ocean floor. So, yes, we need to stop the oil geyser and we still need the Administration to act on a final National Ocean Policy.

The best way to commemorate World Oceans Day is to take some action. Call your Senators directly or through the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask them to permanently oppose all oil drilling off of the Atlantic coast.  Today you can also attend or hold an oil disaster vigil as hundreds are being planned around the country. Another item you will want to put on the calendar now is the nation-wide Hands Across the Sand event on June 26. Stay tuned on this page for more info. Lead by example. Love, celebrate and act to protect your oceans and coasts.

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As the oil disaster continues in the gulf, watch the live feed below (windows media player required).

Angry? Frustrated? Had enough? Click here to tell President Obama to take action today – and help us prevent an oil disaster in New England.

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Today’s story in the New York Times regarding collusion and corruption between the Mineral Management Service and the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico is stunning. But, “stunning” is less than surprising when it comes to the many ways in which MMS and the Department of Interior has allowed the oil industry to dictate the terms of oil operations.

The BP oil disaster is well into its fifth week and the grumbling is growing that the government should move BP aside in order to shut down the oil geyser and get on with the clean-up. The tragic irony is that the federal government cannot stop the oil geyser but has had the chance to stop the collusion and corruption which results in oil spills, fraud, environmental damage and the erosion of professional conduct. Because MMS broke down years ago we are now at the mercy of BP’s last minute inventions.

The “Culture of Ethical Failure” was well described by the DOI Inspector General in this report in Sept. of 2008. Read the first two pages. Chuckle about the part where the IG details illicit sex, alcohol and drug abuse. Now, go back to the first paragraph and re-read the mention that one person pled guilty to a criminal charge but others ”escaped potential administrative action by departing from federal service, with the usual celebratory send-offs that allegedly highlighted the impeccable service that these individuals had given the Federal Government.” As far as the other employees that were referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution? “That office declined to prosecute.”

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One month ago today, a massive explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico took an immediate and devastating toll on the lives of 11 families. Today, we are grappling with an environmental crisis bigger and more severe than anyone could have imagined—one that is endangering Gulf Coast residents, threatening the health of our oceans and marine life and costing billions of dollars in cleanup efforts.

You can help.

Send a message to President Obama asking him to halt new proposals for oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters and focus our resources on building a clean energy economy that means more jobs, less pollution and real energy independence.

Click here to participate in CLF’s action alert and ask President Obama to halt new oil and gas drilling and invest in a clean energy economy. There’s no time to wait.

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From the first time I heard a BP official (May 3, 2010 on NPR)  promise to pay “all legitimate claims” arising from the massive “Deepwater Horizon” discharge of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, my mind turned immediately to the epic legal drama that unfolded in the poisonous wake of the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster.

In the press and during Congressional hearings, BP officials have been extremely disciplined in their undeviating use of this phrase to describe BP’s alleged readiness to pay its fair share (let’s remember that Halliburton and other oil industry contractors are also responsible for this mess) of the financial damages caused by the oil plume emanating from its drilling operation.  Putting aside the issue of whether the full extent of the damage this disaster is causing can ever truly be measured in dollars and cents, it doesn’t take a lawyer to figure out that the phrase “all legitimate claims”–a reasonable enough sounding frame–could give defense attorneys a lot of wiggle room in deciding which claims to pay and which claims to fight.   If BP takes a page out of the Exxon playbook and decides to fight, there’s a good chance that BP will pay pennies on the dollar for those claims that it ultimately determines to be legitimate.

NOAA scientists cleanup and study oil as the Exxon Valdez tanker's breached hulk spews oil into Prudhoe Bay

In case you’re wondering, BP’s profits from the first quarter of 2010 alone were nearly 5.598 BILLION–an increase of 135% over first quarter of 2009 according to BP’s own figures.  That kind of money can buy you the most aggressive defense attorneys in the country–the likes of which lost the first Exxon Valdez trial, but then won the 20-year long legal war of attrition that followed.  Exxon’s endless appeals dragged out payment of and–with the help of a corporation-friendly Supreme Court majority–ultimately dwindled down the amount of damages awarded to fishermen, natives, and others whose livelihoods suffered or were destroyed by the Valdez disaster. 

If you want a preview of where things could be headed if BP does decide to dig in its heels, there are at least two great books on the Exxon disaster that are worth reading.  David Lebedoff’s Cleaning Up: The Story of the Biggest Legal Bonanza of Our Time focuses on the known facts surrounding the Exxon disaster as they were argued at trial and tells the heart-wrenching story of the victims, the perpetrators, and the lawyers that represented them on both sides of the issue.  Dr. Riki Ott’s book Not One Drop– Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill covers some of the same ground, but brings a broader scientific and socio-political context to the events that led to and followed the Valdez disaster.  Hers is a compelling indictment of the whole legal and political system surrounding oil extraction that has been designed for and in large part by the oil companies themselves.

As we continue to watch helplessly as the Deepwater Horizon debacle unfolds, it’s important to revisit the Exxon Valdez spill and its tortured legacy.  Regardless of what happens in the legal battles to come, both disasters–and the growing menace of climate change that is literally fueled by our seemingly insatiable appetite for oil–make the most compelling case in the Court of Public Opinion for truly getting “Beyond Petroleum.”  We are all members of the jury in that case.  How will you vote?

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I had my first whole-body x-ray at the Denver International Airport last night. The amiable attendant jerked his head up and over his right shoulder as he explained that the scan was read by someone far above in the cavernous hall. He then listened for a moment to his earpiece and asked if I was sure I had nothing in my right front pocket. I reached in and pulled out my boarding pass, to which my checked-bag ticket had been affixed with a very small staple. The guy upstairs had seen it, and in an instant we had our hands on the tiny, inoffensive item, and I was on my way.

At about the same time, 5,000 feet of water above their target, BP engineers had finally managed to insert a tube into the gusher spewing untold thousands of barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico and wreaking havoc on a scale we cannot yet comprehend. At best the tube is only a partial, and temporary, fix.

Which is true of many technological solutions to our energy — not to mention our national security — challenges. They are essential, especially in the near term, but they are not sufficient. Greatly expanded renewable energy generation is critical. In the near term, so is substituting more efficient and cleaner fossil-fuel generation, like combined-cycle natural gas plants, for coal generation, while we build a new energy system. That system will rely on carefully selected and implemented technologies that are far more sustainable than the ones we use now.

But the technologies will not save us and the planet — only we can do that. We must summon the will to change the way we build, move around, and live on this planet, including how we support ourselves, feed our families, create wealth and maintain a high quality of life, for everyone on the globe. It is a fundamental mind-shift that will restore a semblance of balance to our ecosystems, ensure long-term prosperity, and promote peace. I believe it is happening. To all who are part of this effort: keep it up.

In the meantime, we can’t bring 4 oz. of liquids onto an airplane, but thousands of gallons of oil foul the Gulf every hour. We should tolerate neither and work hard to change both.

Our global over-reliance on fossil fuels is the crisis of our time. The solution to that crisis is not just plugging the hole in the Gulf.  It is changing our global economy.

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