Yesterday TWO big things happened that prove why we need to ban all new off shore oil drilling and a plan to #KeepItInTheGulf:

  1. An accident at an underwater pipe system connecting four oil wells in the Gulf created a huge oil slick reported to be almost 90,000 gallons. The pipelines in question are owned by Shell, and are only 50 miles farther from the shore than than the BP Disaster.
  2. President Obama's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held a hearing in New Orleans on their plan to sell off 92.2 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling. Our friends showed up in force, some of them carrying tarballs found on Gulf beacheswithin the last few weeks. They also brought more than 20,000 comments from Environmental Action members like you who've signed on to say that tapping the eighth-largest carbon reserve on Earth would be a disaster for our climate and increase the chances of another oil spill.

Follow the instructions below to write a letter yo the editor of your local paper about this news to make sure they know that we can't afford more offshore oil drilling.

Step 1 - Select a Recipient

Paper instructions

Look for papers within miles of zip code

Step 2 - Write your message





Click on a point to add it to the letter.
  • On May 12, as BOEM was holding a hearing on the plan in New Orleans, an accident at an underwater pipe system connecting four oil wells in the Gulf created a huge oil slick reported to be almost 90,000 gallons. The pipelines in question are owned by Shell, and are only 50 miles farther from the shore than than the BP Disaster.

  • Residents near the Gulf coast routinely find tarballs found on Gulf beaches left over from previous spills.

  • Tapping the eighth-largest carbon reserve on Earth would be a disaster for our climate and increase the chances of another oil spill like the BP disaster.

  • According to the Coast Guard's National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year, and many of them under-report the volume of oil spilled or its real cost on Gulf communities.

  • Gulf residents are traveling to Washington, D.C. this weekend to participate in a Break Free from fossil fuels action at the White House. The action follows ten days of global action encouraging a transition to renewable energy and a commitment from world leaders to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

  • The Gulf region has been used as a pollution sacrifice zone for decades. From Keystone XL’s southern leg to new oil and gas export facilities, too often the Gulf of Mexico gets the drilling, spilling and pollution of the oil and gas industry. To add insult to injury, companies like BP, Exxon and Shell can often lease public lands like the ones BOEM is proposing to auction in this plan for as little as $2 an acre.

  • And with up to 894 million barrels of oil and as much as 3.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the auction block, you can bet BOEM's lease plan will attract plenty of bidders.

  • But leases like this are what led to the 2010 BP Horizon oil spill, which President Obama called the “worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.”

  • A group of 66 members of Congress has written to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and asked them to cancel plans to lease more land offshore in the Arctic for oil and gas drilling for good.

  • There are lots of reasons to ban drilling in the remote, cold and unpredictable waters of the Arctic. But when we talk about keeping fossil fuels in the ground, we have to talk about all fossil fuels.

  • Thanks to a massive public outcry, Obama already reversed course on plans to drill off the Atlantic Coast, and recently placed a moratorium on new coal mining on public lands.

  • Citizens can send a comment until June 7, 2016 to tell BOEM that we want to Keep It In the Ground by blocking new oil and gas leases in the Gulf too.

  • To stop climate change, save our coasts (all three of them) and save life on earth - including us humans - we need to keep 80% of fossil fuels in the ground and finance a just transition to 100% clean energy by 2050

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