Audubon California opposes new offshore oil drilling

The enduring image of nearly every oil spill is a dead or dying bird lying on a blackened beach, its feathers covered with oil. We don’t want to see any more of that in California.
Audubon California needs you to make a clear statement to your elected officials that you do not support new oil drilling off our coasts that would endanger millions of shorebirds and their irreplaceable habitat. Please click on the link at left to send a message to your elected representatives on this issue.

In June, President Bush removed an executive order banning oil drilling off America’s coastlines, and has been applying increasing pressure on Congress to lift its 27-year ban so that drilling can commence. Oil companies and their friends in government are clearly hoping to take advantage of the pain that many Americans are feeling at the pump to exploit our most precious coastlines.

We need you to help our elected leaders see through the double-talk on this issue. Attempts to lift the offshore drilling moratorium could be attached to several different bills and come up for a vote at any time. Make your voice heard now.

Our coastlines are too important to risk

Although many of our leaders are saying that oil poses no threat to the environment, more than 2,000 birds killed by last November’s oil spill in San Francisco Bay would say otherwise. The damage from that spill to this irreplaceable habitat will not be fully known for years.

Moreover, California conservationists have not forgotten that it was the horrible oil spill off Santa Barbara in 1969 that sparked the movement that banned drilling from our shores. That spill was so destructive that for years it was known as the “Oil Spill Heard ‘Round the Country.” The spill covered hundreds of square miles of ocean and blackened more than 30 miles of beach. An estimated 4,000 birds were killed, and aerial surveys a year afterward found only 200 Grebes in an area that had previously drawn 4,000 to 7,000.

Of that spill, then-President Richard Nixon said:

“It is sad that it was necessary that Santa Barbara should be the example that had to bring it to the attention of the American people. What is involved is the use of our resources of the sea and of the land in a more effective way and with more concern for preserving the beauty and the natural resources that are so important to any kind of society that we want for the future. The Santa Barbara incident has frankly touched the conscience of the American people.”

The Santa Barbara Oil Spill – which led directly to the Congress’ passing of the National Environmental Policy Act (1969) and the state’s own California Environmental Quality Act (1970) – is often credited with sparking the modern conservation movement.

California currently hosts about 40 Important Bird Areas, sites in California designated by Audubon according to a scientific analysis of avian values as part of a global ornithological effort led by Birdlife International. These areas range from the ornithologically diverse Del Norte Coast to the globally important San Francisco Bay to clean sands of the Goleta Coast to the Tijuana River Reserve. None of these areas should have their fates put in the hands of oil drilling companies.

And for what?

This new effort to drill is nothing more than an effort to leverage high gas prices to gain ever more drilling rights. Millions of acres have been made available already for oil development by the Bush Administration in recent years, and that activity has only padded industry profits as gasoline prices have doubled for consumers. Despite talk of using additional drilling to lower prices at home, American oil producers are selling more and more fuel oversees.

Recent studies by the Bush Administration's own Energy Information Administration (EIA) have shown that expanded drilling offshore would have little impact on supply before 2030 and an "insignificant" impact on prices at the pump.

Our country needs real solutions to these problems, not more giveaways to the oil industry. Energy conservation, renewable energy sources, and increased efficiency measures will benefit consumers now, not years down the road. It is time for Congress to lead the way to a more secure energy future with more affordable energy prices, not to perpetuate America's addiction to oil without helping consumers hurting at the gas pump.

We cannot drill our way to lower gas prices. Instead of this misguided drilling proposal, we need real, long-term solutions that will end our dependence on oil and gas. Congress should continue to raise the fuel economy of our cars, encourage the use of renewable energy like wind and solar power, and adopt other, existing energy-saving technologies that cut pollution, curb global warming and create good jobs.