Tell the Interior Department: No new offshore oil drilling

Re: Oil and Gas Leasing Program

When it comes to oil and gas drilling, when you drill, you spill. The proposed leases would open new gas and oil drilling in some of the places where we've seen this maxim come to pass.

The Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska killed thousands of otters and seals, as many as 22 orcas and a quarter million seabirds. The worst oil spill in U.S. history -- the Deepwater Horizon disaster -- flooded the Gulf of Mexico with more than 134 million gallons of oil, killing tens of thousands of sea turtles and affecting every species of whale and dolphin living in the Gulf.

At a time when catastrophic climate change is devastating people's lives and animals' ecosystems across the planet, why would we jeopardize habitats and our coastal waters for more planet-warming oil? For that reason, I'm writing to urge you to abandon plans to sell leases for oil and gas drilling in U.S. coastal waters.