Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: AG Healey pledges to fight Trump offshore drilling plan along coast

March 14, 2018 — BOSTON — Attorney General Maura Healey on Monday vowed to fight federal plans to open the Massachusetts coastline to offshore oil and gas drilling.

“Massachusetts does not want drilling off our coast and I will fight this proposal to defend our state and our residents,” said Healey in a statement. “Of all the bad environmental ideas the Trump administration has proposed, this one may take the cake.”

President Donald Trump and Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in January announced a plan to offer federal energy leases in most of the nation’s offshore waters, including the North Atlantic planning region stretching from Maine to New Jersey.

The BOEM proposes two such leases within the North Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, starting in 2021 and 2023.

Healey filed formal comments with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Friday. She argued that aside from the risk of oil spills, drilling would conflict with state and federal imperatives to reduce carbon emissions. She said the exploration and extraction is not needed to meet America’s energy needs. Healey said she would consider a legal challenge if necessary.

Read the full story at MassLive

 

U.S. fisheries’ leader Oliver asserts ‘business-minded’ stance at Boston 2018

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — The US’ top regulatory authority on fishing used his first appearance ever at a Seafood Expo North America (SENA) conference on Sunday to describe how he was reshaping the mission at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create more of a pro-business environment.

Commercial fishermen largely applauded the Donald Trump administration’s selection of Chris Oliver to serve as NOAA’s assistant administrator of fisheries in June 2017. But Oliver, who was confirmed in his new role in July, has maintained a relatively low profile since, his office not responding to requests for interviews.

In November, he told Alaska fishermen at a public meeting that he supported regulatory flexibility. The month before he had demanded the retraction of an article suggesting US seafood exported to Japan includes a high number of illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fish.

On Sunday, in Boston, he made it clear that he was using his leadership role to both follow the administration’s charge to combat excessive regulation and also looking out for harvesters.

“I’m a firm believer in a science-based approach to fisheries,” Oliver said. “… For 40 years, the North Pacific [Management] Council has been using annual catch limits, and I firmly believe those are the cornerstone to sustainable management. But I also believe that there is room for flexibility and a greater role for common sense frankly in our approach to fisheries management. And I want to bring a more business-minded approach to that process.”

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Report suggests offshore drilling is a ‘bad deal’ for Florida

March 9, 2018 — Oil drilling along Florida’s coast could put at risk almost 610,000 jobs and $37.4 billion in economic activity, according to a new report by an ocean advocacy group.

Nationally, the nonprofit Oceana’s new economic analysis found that the Trump administration’s offshore drilling plan would threaten more than 2.6 million jobs and almost $180 billion in Gross Domestic Product for only two years’-worth of oil and just over one year’s-worth of gas at current consumption rates.

“From ocean views scattered with drilling platforms, to the industrialization of our coastal communities, to the unacceptable risk of more BP Deepwater Horizon-like disasters — expanding offshore drilling to new areas threatens thriving coastal economies and booming industries like tourism, recreation and fishing that rely on oil-free beaches and healthy oceans,” Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana, said in a statement. “Coastal communities and states are outraged by this radical plan that threatens to destroy our clean coast economies.”

Oil industry officials disputed the findings, saying their industry has operated safely alongside commercial fishing, tourism and other industries for decades.

Oceana’s report was based on the most recent available data for ocean-dependent jobs and revenue from tourism, fishing and recreation in Atlantic and Pacific coastal states, as well as Florida’s Gulf coast, and compares them to the “undiscovered economically recoverable oil and gas reserves in those states.”

Read the full story at Florida Today

 

Maine critics throw cold water on Trump administration’s offshore drilling plan

The proposal to open 90 percent of the nation’s coastline – including the North Atlantic – to oil and gas exploration draws widespread opposition at an event held by federal officials in Augusta.

March 8, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Fishermen, environmentalists and lawmakers from Maine’s coast called on the Trump administration Wednesday to exclude the North Atlantic from a plan to potentially reopen much of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas exploration.

Representatives with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management were in Augusta for an open house-style event to field questions about President Trump’s controversial offshore energy proposal. The draft plan released in January calls for reopening 90 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards to oil and gas drilling, a seismic shift from the 6 percent now available to energy companies. The public comment period on the draft plan closes Friday.

Just two of the 47 proposed lease sales would be in the North Atlantic region stretching from Maine to New Jersey. But the mere prospect of oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine or Georges Bank – and the accompanying environmental risks – was enough to draw more than 60 people to a pre-emptive event held before the bureau’s open house.

Kristan Porter, a fisherman from Cutler who is president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, recalled how one of his predecessors told Congress in 1970 that Maine fishermen were “100 percent against” allowing oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine. Nearly 50 years later, Porter said, nothing has changed.

“Allowing the exploration of oil and gas … could devastate our fisheries, our fishermen and our communities,” Porter said at a news conference. “Maine’s fishing industries are dependent on Maine’s clean water. Even minor spills could irreparably damage the Gulf of Maine.”

Porter was joined at the event by representatives of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and other environmental groups, the aquaculture industry, tourism advocates, and Democratic, Republican and independent politicians. All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation also oppose the plan.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester again at center of drilling fight

March 8, 2018 — GLOUCESTER, Mass. — In the late-1970s, an unlikely alliance between environmentalists and commercial fishermen in this storied seaport helped block plans to open up Georges Bank to oil exploration — an effort that ultimately led to a federal moratorium on offshore drilling.

Georges Bank, a shallow and turbulent fish spawning ground southeast of Cape Ann and 100 miles east of Cape Cod, has been fished for more than 350 years. It is once again the center of a battle over drilling, this time stemming from President Donald Trump’s plan to allow private oil and gas companies to work in federal waters.

And, once again, Gloucester is poised to play an oversized role in opposing the efforts.

“It was a stupid idea back then, and it’s a stupid idea now,” said Peter Shelley, a senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, which teamed up with Gloucester fisherman to fight the proposal more than three decades ago. “But yet here we are, fighting it once again. It’s ridiculous.”

The Trump administration says existing federal policy keeps 94 percent of the outer continental shelf off-limits to drilling. A five-year plan announced by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke last year would open at least 90 percent of that area beyond state waters to development by private companies.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Protesters rally against Trump’s oil drilling plans

March 6, 2018 — CONCORD, Mass. — Dozens of protesters rallied in New Hampshire on Monday against a proposal by President Donald Trump’s administration to expand offshore drilling, saying it poses a grave threat to the state’s marine ecosystem and economy.

Protesters — some carrying signs that read “Stop Big Polluters” and “No Spill No Drill No Kill”– gathered outside a Concord hotel that was hosting an information session by federal officials to explain the process that could lead to drilling for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf in the North Atlantic. The hearing is one of 23 the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is holding on drilling plans including one in Maine on Wednesday.

Tom Irwin, director of the Conservation Law Foundation of New Hampshire, told reporters before the protest that oil and gas drilling put fisheries, tourism and recreation at risk. He said ocean resources in New England support 250,000 jobs and $17.4 billion in economic activity.

“The last thing we need are more man-made threats to our oceans and New England’s natural resources heritage,” Irwin said. “The Trump administration’s proposal ignores the will of our coastal communities and millions of Americans who have voiced their opposition to offshore drilling.”

New Hampshire’s all-Democratic Congressional delegation and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu oppose the proposal. Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, said he and a bipartisan group of lawmakers will seek to suspend House rules this week to introduce a resolution making it clear that state lawmakers also oppose it.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portsmouth Herald

 

Trump plan to allow oil drilling off New England unites foes in opposition

March 5, 2018 — For decades, they have done battle — through street protests, in courtrooms, on Beacon Hill. It takes a lot, something broadly and viscerally opposed, to unite the traditional foes.

But the Trump administration’s new plan to allow drilling for oil and gas off the shores of New England has done just that, forging a bipartisan coalition of fishermen, environmental advocates, industry groups, and scientists against the plan.

At a recent press conference held to denounce the plan, Peter Shelley of the Conservation Law Foundation noted that the last time he stood on the same side as so many fishermen was some four decades ago, when the federal government last pressed such a proposal.

“It’s ridiculous, and very discouraging, that we’re back here 40 years later,” he said, noting that the previous coalition succeeded in blocking offshore drilling while opponents in other regions failed. “It didn’t make sense then, and it makes less sense now.”

When Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, spoke at the press conference last Monday at the New England Aquarium, she smiled at Shelley, a longtime proponent of fishing regulations.

“Here we are again,” she said, calling the drilling proposal “a disgrace.” “We’re not going to allow it to happen . . . Georges Bank is the richest fishing ground in the world. We have to protect it with our lives.”

In January, the Trump administration announced it was lifting a drilling ban and would allow prospecting for offshore oil and gas deposits in nearly all the coastal waters of the United States.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which will oversee the permitting process, estimates that opening the proposed areas could tap some 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion tons of natural gas, potentially a major boost to the nation’s energy reserves.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Rhode Islanders march against offshore drilling

March 5, 2018 — PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than a hundred Rhode Island residents gathered at the State House Wednesday to protest the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal to lift the long-standing ban on offshore fossil fuel drilling in large swaths of US coastal waters.

The protest, organized by Save the Bay, an independent, nonprofit organization devoted to protecting and improving Narragansett Bay, was preceded by a press conference wherein several state officials spoke out against BOEM’s proposal.

Concerned RI residents packed into the State Room as Governor Gina Raimondo, Senator Dawn Euer, Mayor Scott Avedesian of Warwick and others railed against the expansion of offshore drilling in RI and elsewhere.  The proposal came after President Donald Trump’s latest executive order to reverse existing policy that protects waters from oil and gas drilling.

According to BOEM, the proposal, “The Five Year Program, is an “important component” of the President’s executive order to allow domestic oil and natural gas production “as a means to support economic growth and job creation and enhance energy security.”

“While offshore oil and gas exploration and development will never be totally risk-free, since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill, the U.S. Department of the Interior has made, and is continuing to make, substantial reforms to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of OCS oil and gas activity,” reads the proposal.

However at Thursday’s press conference, Raimondo said the proposal is a “terrifying” move in the wrong direction, citing “tragedies like Exxon Valdez and the BP oil spill.”

“We should be focusing on harnessing our offshore wind power – not digging for oil off our coast. The proposal that came out of Washington in January to open up our coastal waters to offshore drilling is terrifying,” Raimondo said, to thunderous applause.  “Rhode Island won’t stand for it.”

Reaching the coastlines of all five Gulf Coasts, the long-term impacts of the Deepwater spill are still felt today, taking a devastating impacts on birds, mammals, fish, and other creatures.

Read the full story at the Narragansett Times

 

Massachusetts: Trump’s offshore drilling plan panned at hearing

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of offshore drilling on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s proposal to open up the New England coast to oil and gas exploration, saying the plan threatens the state’s fishing industry, coastal economies, public health and delicate marine life.

Officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a informational event about Trump’s plans in the Sheraton Hotel in Boston on Tuesday, but they only took written testimony from the public. They set up booths with experts to answer questions and a broadcast a video with information about the proposal.

Opponents staged a protest in another function room. Some wore lobster and shark costumes. Others held signs that read “Drilling is Killing.” A giant inflatable whale was displayed.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton, chapter director of the Massachusetts Sierra Club, told a packed room of opponents. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Democratic attorneys general from a dozen coastal states — including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey — have written Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke protesting the drilling plan. Tuesday’s hearing was one of dozens scheduled across the country through the end of March.

Democratic governors along both coasts unanimously oppose drilling, as do a number of Republican governors, including Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker. Baker is scheduled to meet with Zinke on Sunday to discuss offshore drilling while he’s in Washington for the National Governors Association’s winter meeting.

Baker wrote to Zinke last year expressing concerns about the impact of oil exploration along the outer continental shelf on the state’s fishing industry and marine resources and ecosystems. He also noted the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop offshore wind resources.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Gloucester Times: Government must listen on ocean drilling

March 1, 2018 — Opponents of drilling for oil and gas in the offshore waters of New England are legion, and they have plenty to say.

If only they could find a way to get their government to listen.

What was touted earlier this year as a public hearing on the proposal by the Bureau Ocean Energy Management was anything but Tuesday. The event, which had been postponed and seen its location shift a handful of times, could be better described as an infomercial. There were business expo-style booths aplenty at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, and even a promotional video touting the plan.

But if you wanted to let government leaders know in person how you felt about drilling into the seabed, you were out of luck — the bureau was accepting written comments only. It’s a common tactic used by officials to stifle public debate. By accepting written comments, you can pretend you’ve listened to the people without having to actually face them in an open, public and often messy forum.

And folks in these parts are demanding to be heard on the Trump administration’s plan to open 90 percent of the nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration. When it was announced a few months ago, the proposal garnered immediate praise from the giant energy conglomerates who seem to have the president’s ear on issues ranging from the Keystone XL pipeline to so-called “clean coal.” Every other interest, meanwhile, came out against the plan. Republicans and Democrats — including Gov. Charlie Baker and Attorney General Maura Healey — are united in bipartisan opposition. The commercial fishing industry and the environmental lobby, which have been bitterly at odds over the last 30 years, are standing side-by-side.

“Opening up our coast to offshore drilling would be terrible for Massachusetts,” Emily Norton of the Massachusetts Sierra Club said Tuesday. “We will be fighting this with everything we’ve got, in the courts, on the streets and at the ballot box.”

Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who cut her political teeth opposing drilling as a member of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association (she is still the group’s vice president), noted a single leak from an oil well in an offshore fishing area “could devastate us all.”

She’s right. It would be the end of New England commercial fishing, which is less an “industry” like the oil and gas behemoths and more a loose confederation of small businesses ranging from shoreside bait and ice providers to marine repair yards to the boats themselves, the oceangoing equivalent of a mom-and-pop store. Together, however, they comprise a $7 billion-a-year piece of the economy.”

And that’s not taking into account Massachusetts’ recreational fishing and tourism businesses, which rely on clean water and pristine beaches to attract visitors.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times