Ocean Sentry
(From australia.to) – In a news conference at the White House, Mr Bush told Congress there was “no excuse for delay” in lifting the ban. Since 1981, a congressional moratorium has prohibited oil and gas drilling along the east and west coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, an area accounting for some 80% of the US”s Outer Continental Shelf.
Kassie Siegel, climate programme director at the California-based Center for Biological Diversity, condemned the Bush offshore initiative. She points out that the US government recently calculated there was a 33-51% chance of a major spill in the lifetime of an offshore oil and gas lease in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska. Such a spill, defined as a release of 1,000 barrels or more from a platform or pipeline, could affect bowhead whales, polar bears and other wildlife.
However, the government’s environmental impact statement concluded that “an area affected by such a spill relative to the size of the Chukchi Sea decreases the likelihood that the resources would be widely contacted by the spill”.
