House to Vote on Offshore Drilling

The U.S. House is expected to vote sometime this week on a bill to open up over 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. This vote comes just weeks after the American people voted resoundingly for change, including new energy supplies - not for the unsustainable energy policies of the past. The Republican leadership is completely ignoring what citizens voted for. The League of Conservation Voters is urging Members of Congress to heed the wishes of the American public by voting against this parting gift to Big Oil companies. The misleadingly-named Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 gifts oil companies the right to drill on eight million new acres of Florida's Gulf Coast. This includes more than six million acres of waters that have been protected for the last 25 years by the bipartisan offshore drilling moratorium. This Act fails to address our energy problems, raids the federal treasury, and threatens our coastal economies and ecosystems with pollution and oil spills. Opening more of our coastlines in such a way does nothing to aleviate our energy concerns, especially given that oil companies currently hold more than 4,000 untapped leases in the Gulf of Mexico and eighty percent of offshore oil and gas resources are already open to drilling. Instead of spoiling our shores and perpetuating our dependence on oil as a source of energy, Congress should pursue faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly energy policies, including making cars and trucks go further on a gallon of gasoline and increasing our use of clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.