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For Immediate Release
October, 18 2021, 05:27pm EDT
Contact:
Kelsey Lamp, Environment America Research & Policy Center Protect our Oceans Campaign Director, (775) 397-5057, klamp@environmentamerica.org
Laura Deehan, Environment California Research & Policy Center Director, (415) 420-4710, ldeehan@environmentcalifornia.
Josh Chetwynd, Deputy Director, Media Relations, (303) 573-5558, jchetwynd@
Congressional Field Hearing in Orange County Shines Light on Recent Oil Spill's Devastating Impacts
Lawmakers gather important facts on recent offshore disaster.
WASHINGTON
The Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a joint field oversight hearing Monday in response to the recent oil spill in Orange County that devastated both wildlife and local coastal communities.
Just over two weeks ago, an oil pipeline off the coast of California ruptured, spilling about 25,000 gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean. The accident created a 13-mile wide slick on the ocean's surface.
At the hearing, U.S. representatives called for an end to offshore oil drilling in California.
"When they drill, they will spill," said Rep. Mike Levin of California. "It can't be done without significant risk." Added Rep. Alan Lowenthal of California: "If we do not address the root causes of the oil spill ... we will simply be navigating from one tragedy to the next."
Experts at the hearing emphasized the far-reaching consequences of the spill for wildlife.
Oil can have "effects on every organ system in an animal's body," said Dr. Michael Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network. "Dolphins can be significantly impacted by oil, primarily through inhalation of the fumes upon surfacing."
Environment California Research & Policy Center is an affiliate of Environment America Research & Policy Center.
Environment California Research & Policy Center State Director Laura Deehan issued the following statement:
"We thank the members of Congress for holding this hearing. But we shouldn't need to have this conversation over and over again -- for decades. This recent oil spill in California is the latest example of the inevitable devastation that comes with offshore drilling. There is no safe way to drill off our coasts. Simply put, when we drill, we spill, and when we spill the results are disastrous."
Environment America Research & Policy Center Protect Our Oceans Campaign Director Kelsey Lamp issued the following statement:
"Offshore drilling is dirty, dangerous and doesn't belong in our oceans. As this hearing shows, our elected representatives, scientific and wildlife experts, and businesses and communities agree: It's time to end offshore oil drilling. We need to immediately stop the sale of new leases and permanently protect our coasts from offshore drilling."
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
(303) 801-0581LATEST NEWS
Even as Trump Suggests US Taxpayers May Foot the Bill, How Bullish Is Big Oil on Venezuela?
"The appetite for jumping into Venezuela right now is pretty low," one industry source explained to CNN.
Jan 06, 2026
While President Donald Trump has openly stated that the US will seize Venezuela's oil in the wake of the US military's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, there are questions about just how much interest big oil companies have in the president's desire for plunder.
In a Monday interview with NBC News, Trump insisted that US oil companies would invest the billions of dollars needed to rebuild Venezuela's oil extraction infrastructure, and he even floated having US taxpayers reimburse them for their efforts.
"A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue," Trump explained.
However, other recent reporting indicates that oil companies are not gung-ho about the president's plans.
According to a Monday report from CNN, US oil companies have several reasons to be wary of making significant investments in Venezuela, including political instability in the wake of Maduro's ouster, degradation of the country's oil infrastructure, and the fact that the current low price of oil would make such investments unprofitable.
"The appetite for jumping into Venezuela right now is pretty low," one industry source explained to CNN. "We have no idea what the government there will look like. The president’s desire is different than the industry’s. And the White House would have known that if they had communicated with the industry prior to the operation on Saturday."
Another industry source told CNN that the president doesn't appear to understand the complexities of setting up major petroleum extraction operations, especially in politically unstable countries.
"Just because there are oil reserves—even the largest in the world—doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to produce there,” they said. "This isn’t like standing up a food truck operation."
The American Prospect's Ryan Cooper added some more context to oil companies' reluctance to go all-in on Trump's looting scheme, noting in an analysis published Tuesday that US fracking companies could feel real financial pain if Trump floods the market with even cheaper Venezuelan oil.
"The price of oil, about $58 at time of writing, is already dangerously low for American fracking companies, whose investments typically pencil out with prices at $60 per barrel or above," Cooper explained. "More oil on global markets means those prices would drop even lower, crushing the economics of drilling even further. The US oil industry needs Trump to swoop in and add another few million barrels a day of production like it needs a hole in the head."
Cooper added that while Venezuela has a large quantity of oil, its quality is very low, which could also hinder oil companies' ability to produce a profit from extracting it.
"The product is so gloopy that you have to cut it with some kind of solvent to get it to flow in a pipe," he wrote. "In short, it’s expensive to drill, transport, and refine, just like the fracked oil that is barely turning a profit right now."
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Exxon, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron are set to have a meeting at the White House this week to discuss the prospects of extracting oil from Venezuela.
An industry source told Reuters that "nobody in those three companies has had conversations with the White House about operating in Venezuela, pre-removal or post-removal to this point."
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5 Years After Jan. 6 Attack, Trump Assault on Constitution and Democracy Reaches New Heights
"This president's authoritarianism is a real and living threat to our democracy and it demands vigilance, and resistance from us all."
Jan 06, 2026
On the fifth anniversary of President Donald Trump's supporters storming the US Capitol over his reelection loss, and nearly a year after he pardoned those insurrectionists, congressional Democrats and other critics condemned the Republican leader's escalating assault on the country's Constitution and democracy.
"On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 rioters, including violent criminals who bludgeoned police officers," Christina Harvey, executive director of the progressive group Stand Up America, said in a Tuesday statement.
"The message is unmistakable: Those who break the law for Trump are rewarded with pardons and protection, while those who enforce the law are punished for doing their jobs," she said. "That leaves all of us less safe. The American people deserve better."
Ahead of the anniversary, US House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) released two related reports: Where Are They Now: The Perpetrators of January 6th and the Defenders of Democracy Who Stopped Them, and One Year Later: Assessing the Public Safety Implications of President Trump's Mass Pardons of 1,600 January 6 Rioters and Insurrectionists.
On Jan. 6, 2021, bloody insurrectionary violence interrupted the peaceful transfer of power.Today, America is still caught in an epic struggle between selfish forces of rule-or-ruin autocracy & the unyielding defenders of constitutional democracy all over America.
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— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@raskin.house.gov) January 6, 2026 at 9:40 AM
Raskin—a former constitutional law professor who notably led Trump's historic second impeachment in the wake of the Capitol attack—also penned a Tuesday op-ed in the New York Times, arguing that January 6, 2021 "never ended."
The congressman highlighted that since returning to the Oval Office, Trump has "punished law enforcement officials en masse for doing their jobs," installing "insurrectionists in the highest ranks of the Department of Justice" and conducting a "bureaucratic purge—with firings and permanent demotions—of hundreds" of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and prosecutors.
"These moves at the Justice Department," he wrote, "have cost the government thousands of collective years of investigative and prosecutorial experience, demoralized the civil service, and reduced our government to the moral level of a gangster state."
Raskin further pointed out that the president "granted clemency to dozens of people who had committed or been accused of violent and horrific crimes after January 6, such as plotting the murders of FBI agents, resisting arrest, assault, rape, burglary, stalking, stabbing, possession of child sex abuse materials, and DUI homicide."
Raskin also joined several other House Democrats—including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), who chaired the select committee that investigated the Capitol attack—for an unofficial Tuesday morning hearing that featured testimony from former law enforcement, state officials, and other Americans who witnessed the MAGA mob violence.
Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also plan to mark the anniversary outside the Capitol Tuesday evening. In a morning floor speech, Schumer noted that event, recounted his experience with the "mob of rioters," stressed that "we must never relent on speaking the truth" about the attack, and slammed the pardons as "among the most sickening things Donald Trump has done in office."
"These pardons were an explicit endorsement of using violence to get your way," Schumer said. "That is who Donald Trump is at his core: a man who’s happy to see violence work in his favor, to get what he wants. And in this chamber—especially in the House of Representatives—too many Republicans remain silent in the face of obvious evil."
Separately, Schumer has spoken out against Trump's recent illegal violence abroad: a boat-bombing spree that has killed over 100 alleged drug traffickers in international waters and the weekend abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which resulted in dozens of deaths.
"For two long hours we heard yesterday from the administration, and what we heard was little more than wishful thinking and no real answers," he said Tuesday. "We got no clear answer to any of the four questions I've been asking the administration for days."
"First, how many troops are we going to commit to Venezuela? Are there any limits? No answer," Schumer explained. "Second, for how long will we be committed to running Venezuela? No answer. Third, how much is this all going to cost? They said they had no cost estimate. And fourth, what country is next? Is Colombia on the table? Are we going to invade a NATO ally like Greenland? Where does this belligerence stop? I was very troubled, very troubled by their answer on this as well."
Schumer pledged Monday that this week he and other senators would force a vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution "that will affirm Congress' authority on matters of war and peace when it comes to Venezuela." So far, neither GOP-controlled chamber has been able to pass such a measure related to Trump's march toward war with the South American nation or his boat bombings.
On Saturday, Trump attacked Venezuela. Five years ago Trump attacked our Capitol. If Trump had been held accountable for the Jan 6 attack, there would've been no attack on Venezuela-nor anything else from this second term. My new article deanobeidallah.substack.com/p/the-straig...
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— Dean Obeidallah (@deanobeidallah.bsky.social) January 6, 2026 at 10:04 AM
In a Tuesday statement about the January 6 anniversary, Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the advocacy group Public Citizen, pointed to not only Trump's abduction of the Venezuelan leader but also how he's trampled on the rights of Americans, including by trying to deploy the National Guard in various US cities.
"Five years ago, a sitting US president incited violence against our nation in a shameless attempt to overturn a democratically held election. This day must live forever in our memory, so that we continue to seek accountability for the perpetrators and work tirelessly to safeguard our democracy from future lawlessness," Gilbert said. "As we reflect on the solemn anniversary of the insurrection, we must grapple with the reality that the same president is back in office."
"And that his disdain for the rule of law and disregard of the US Constitution are more brazen than ever, amplified by endless incendiary rhetoric and reckless actions," she continued. "From the unwanted and unlawful military deployments of the National Guard to US cities to the indefensible and brazenly unlawful kidnapping of a foreign leader for the benefit of fossil fuel corporations, this president's authoritarianism is a real and living threat to our democracy, and it demands vigilance and resistance from us all."
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Michigan Organizer Speaks After Being Arrested Live on Camera for Protesting Trump Venezuela Attack
Jessica Plichta told a reporter that it is "the duty of us the people to stand against the Trump regime" just before she was arrested.
Jan 06, 2026
A 22-year-old woman who was detained for several hours by police in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday after speaking out against President Donald Trump's invasion of Venezuela had allegedly "obstructed a roadway" and failed to obey officers—but she described an arrest in which the authorities appeared to be suspicious of her for protesting at all.
Jessica Plichta, a preschool teacher and organizer, told Zeteo on Monday that police officers repeatedly asked her why she was at a protest in Grand Rapids' Rosa Parks Circle, where hundreds of demonstrators spoke out against the US military's abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores—a violation of international law that has garnered worldwide condemnation.
Plichta had just finished speaking to a reporter with local ABC News affiliate WZZM about her opposition to the US invasion of Venezuela when two city police officers came up behind her and placed her under arrest.
It is "the duty of us the people to stand against the Trump regime, the Trump administration, that are committing crimes both here in the US and against people in Venezuela," said Plichta just before the officers appeared on camera behind her.
Grand Rapids police arrest an antiwar activist live on air while taking an interview denouncing US military aggression in Venezuela pic.twitter.com/Zm16aFRDxq
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) January 5, 2026
Plichta told Zeteo, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as soon as I finished an interview speaking on Venezuela, I was arrested—the only person arrested out of 200 people."
She told the officers she was "not resisting arrest" as they led her toward a police car. A bystander approached and asked the police what Plichta was being detained for.
The officers replied that she had been "obstructing a roadway" and was accused of "failure to obey a lawful command from a police officer."
BREAKING: IN GRAND RAPIDS MICHIGAN, at approximately 5:30pm today, GRPD arrested local organizer Jessica Plichta on camera during a post-march press interview.
Plichta was sought out and targeted specifically by
GRPD for helping lead a U.S. Out Of Venezuela rally at Rosa Parks… pic.twitter.com/Uj6fLVba80
— Private IcedC81 Politics (@PvtIcedC81Pol) January 3, 2026
Plichta told Zeteo that the police drove her away from WZZM's cameras and then took her out of the car, patted her down, and confiscated her belongings. The officers told her she had been "making a scene" and asked her about her involvement in the protest: whether she was Venezuelan, "what she had to do with Venezuela," and what she was doing at the protest.
She also told Zeteo that the police asked her for the names of other demonstrators.
She was asked again what her connection to Venezuela was after she was taken to Kent County Correctional Facility, where she was held for about three hours and released after outcry from her fellow organizers.
"We are so accustomed to, and used to, repression when we speak out on anti-war topics,” Plichta told the outlet. “When we speak out for Venezuela, when we speak out for Palestine, we expect the police to want to shut that down.”
A spokesperson for the Grand Rapids Police Department told Zeteo that protesters had "refused lawful orders to move this free speech event to the sidewalk and instead began blocking intersections until the march ended," and said Plichta "was positively identified by officers," allowing for her arrest.
Though Plichta remained calm when she was arrested and suggested that she had taken her detention relatively in stride, supporters expressed shock that she had been targeted for speaking out against Trump's attack on Venezuela—which is broadly unpopular across the United States.
"What in the Gestapo is going on in Grand Rapids?" asked Brandon Friedman, a former Obama administration official.
Friedman pointed out that among elected Democrats, there appeared to be little if any outcry over Plichta's arrest for participating in a peaceful protest.
If this happened to a conservative organizer, Republicans would make her a hero, a household name and a congressional candidate.Elected Democrats just pretend it isn't happening.
— Brandon Friedman (@brandonfriedman.bsky.social) January 5, 2026 at 11:29 AM
“Protesting in this country is sacred," Plichta told Zeteo, "and so it is important that our rights are protected and that we are not criminalized for peacefully protesting in a world full of escalating violence."
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