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deepwater horizon
On Earth Day, Dems Push Bills to Ban Offshore Drilling 'Once and for All'
"Earth Day is an important reminder that every coastal community deserves healthy oceans and oil-free beaches," said one campaigner.
Apr 22, 2025
On Tuesday, to coincide with Earth Day, multiple Democratic senators renewed their effort to pass bills to protect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from offshore oil and gas drilling—part of a broader legislative push by Democrats to safeguard U.S. coastal waters.
Sen. Alex Padilla of California has reintroduced the West Coast Ocean Protection Act, which would permanently end new oil and gas leases for offshore drilling off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington.
"We must end offshore oil drilling in coastal waters once and for all," said Padilla in a statement on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey has reintroduced the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act, which would permanently prohibit the federal government from issuing leases for the exploration, development, or production of offshore oil and gas in the North Atlantic, Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Straits of Florida planning areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.
Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) are leading companion legislation for the two bills in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"California's spectacular marine life—including complex kelp forests and charismatic sea otters—and vibrant coastal economies rely on healthy ecosystems," said Pamela Flick, Defenders of Wildlife California program director, in a statement on Tuesday.
The West Coast Ocean Protection Act "could, once and for all, block offshore drilling activities along the continental shelf, and protect critical marine habitats along California's iconic Pacific Coast," she said.
The legislation comes as environmental leaders warn that this Earth Day puts a focus on the need to resist the Trump administration's attacks on environmental regulation and programs.
On President Donald Trump's first day in office, he initiated plans to make federal land and waters open for oil drilling and mining, including in fragile wilderness in Alaska. Trump also declared a national energy emergency.
Beyond the West Coast Ocean Protection Act and the COAST Anti-Drilling Act, Democratic lawmakers in Congress have reintroduced several other bills in recent weeks aimed at safeguarding coasts.
Those bills include the Florida Coastal Protection Act, which would protect the coast of Florida and eastern Gulf of Mexico from offshore drilling, exploration, and production, and the New England Coastal Protection Act, which would protect the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, in addition to portions of the North Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf, from offshore drilling.
Conservation groups said they welcome the suite of legislation.
"The path of so-called 'energy dominance' is paved with threats to American coasts," said Sierra Weaver, senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement on Tuesday. "This set of bills offers real protections for coastal communities and wildlife against unwanted, unreasonable, and unsafe offshore oil drilling."
Weaver added that the bills are the kind of leadership and action that's needed on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history.
"Oceana applauds these congressional leaders for reintroducing pivotal legislation that would establish permanent protections from offshore oil and gas drilling for millions of acres of ocean," said Oceana campaign director Joseph Gordon in a statement on Tuesday.
"Earth Day is an important reminder that every coastal community deserves healthy oceans and oil-free beaches," he added.
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Lingering Poison: My Witness to Deepwater Horizon’s Legacy on the Gulf Coast
Fifteen years after the oil spill, the legacy of Corexit dispersants continues to manifest in the broken bodies and shattered lives of those who were exposed, including those who spoke out to save future generations.
Apr 20, 2025
As the mother of a childhood cancer survivor from a coastal Alabama cluster, I reflect on the 15th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster with anger and frustration at the countless lives needlessly destroyed by the spill and its “cleanup.” But more than anything, I am afraid… I am afraid because the same chemicals that wrought havoc on Gulf communities aren’t being disposed of—they are being rebranded to be reused.
During my seven years of assisting cleanup workers at a Miami-based law firm and Government Accountability Project, I saw the stuff of medical nightmares manifest in real life as I came face-to-face with an innocuously named monster: Corexit. Corexit is a chemical oil dispersant that was used liberally in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to break up oil slicks into smaller droplets that can be submerged underwater. While Corexit was once described as being “as safe as dish soap” by a BP executive, the final chapter of its use in the Deepwater Horizon disaster was not to be told via feel-good commercials of freshly cleaned ducklings. It is still being written by outsiders documenting the broken lives of the men and women who can no longer speak for themselves after volunteering to clean the Gulf.
Many of the men and women who volunteered to clean the Gulf, a body of water that bound together their communities, jobs, and very way of life, died in the months and years after exposure to Corexit, often from serious diseases including blood and pancreatic cancers—silencing their voices long before justice could be served. I personally knew dozens who were exposed and subsequently left the Earth far too soon.
The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters.
I still think about Captain Bill, who came to us when Stage 4 colon cancer appeared after running a supply boat to the sinking Deepwater Horizon rig. He did not believe all the hype from environmentalists about the dangers of dispersants until he got crop-dusted with them. He developed softball sized cysts all over his body filled with bacteria and was left with just months to live. He left behind a wife and three children, including a young son with autism.
I remember Sandra, a woman who always exuded joy during the 20 years I’d known her. Her job for BP required her to hop on and off oil-contaminated boats; she tragically developed a rare myeloproliferative disorder that ended her life at age 60. She left behind a husband who missed her so profoundly that he lasted only a few months without her.
Corexit has been proven to have deadly side effects within humans, but that won’t stop corporate greed from slapping a new label on it and sending it to a different country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of finalizing new rules and regulations governing the usage of oil dispersants. Right before the rules were set to be finalized, the manufacturer of Corexit abruptly discontinued its product line which constituted over 45% of globally stockpiled dispersants. This was likely not coincidental; the new EPA rules require manufacturers to truthfully report known or anticipated harm to human health and wildlife from their products. Corexit’s parent company chose to withdraw from the U.S. market while re-registering the same toxic products in the United Kingdom and Brazil in 2024, with France also considering approval.
People and communities were falsely reassured about the safety of the working conditions, as BP told workers personal protective gear was unnecessary when dealing with the chemicals. Now, with the risks and threats of exposure known, the protective gear could have saved hundreds of lives and communities from devastation.
Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the legacy of Corexit dispersants continues to manifest in the broken bodies and shattered lives of those who were exposed, including those who spoke out to save future generations. The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters. The time has come to close this dark chapter in our history and commit to solutions that truly protect both our coasts and the people who call them home.
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In First Major Climate Challenge to Trump 2.0, Groups Work to Block Offshore Drilling Once Again
Climate campaigners defeated the president's offshore drilling push during his first term, and they are pledging to do so again.
Feb 21, 2025
Climate advocates are expressing confidence as they file the first major environmental legal challenges to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, with the legal group Earthjustice noting that campaigners were victorious during Trump's first term when they sued to stop him from gutting protections from offshore oil drilling.
"We defeated Trump the first time he tried to roll back protections and sacrifice more of our waters to the oil industry," said Earthjustice managing attorney Steve Mashuda on Wednesday as the organization filed a challenge against an executive order Trump signed on his first day of his new White House term. "We're bringing this abuse of the law to the courts again."
Trump urged oil and gas companies—which poured nearly $450 million into efforts to get him and other anti-climate Republicans elected last year—to "drill, baby, drill" as he signed the order hours into his second term.
The order rolled back former Democratic President Joe Biden's ban on offshore drilling over more than 625 million acres of coastal territory, including parts of the Gulf of Mexico that were impacted by BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which killed 11 people and devastated local ecosystems and businesses.
"Trump tried this illegal move to undo protections during his first administration, and he failed. We will keep working to ensure he won't be any more successful this time around."
As Common Dreams reported in January, Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect areas of the U.S. coasts from future oil and gas leasing, and a federal judge ruled in 2019 that withdrawals under the law cannot be revoked without an act of Congress.
"When nearly 40% of Americans live in coastal counties that rely on a healthy ocean to thrive, removing critical protections shows how little care Trump has for these communities," said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney at Sierra Club, which joined the lawsuit along with climate groups Oceana, Greenpeace, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, and other organizations. "Trump tried this illegal move to undo protections during his first administration, and he failed. We will keep working to ensure he won't be any more successful this time around."
Earthjustice noted that a poll conducted by Ipsos last year on behalf of Oceana found that 64% of Americans want elected officials to keep offshore areas off-limits for new oil and gas leasing. Climate scientists have consistently warned that new fossil fuel projects have no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C or as close to it as possible.
The majority of Americans support ocean protections from offshore drilling. Trump's executive order to rescind protections from offshore drilling is not just illegal – it's deeply unpopular. We're in court to protect coastal communities, public health, regional economies, and marine ecosystems.
— Earthjustice (@earthjustice.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 11:28 AM
The possibility of fossil fuel drilling near coastal communities threatens "the health and economic resilience of millions of people who rely on clean and healthy oceans for everything from tourism to commercial fishing," said Earthjustice.
Trump is pushing to open up new areas for offshore drilling even as fossil fuel production in the U.S. has surged to record highs in recent years. He has claimed the country faces an "energy emergency" even as the oil industry has not yet begun drilling in 80% of the millions of public acres of water where it already holds leases.
"Trump's putting our oceans, marine wildlife, and coastal communities at risk of devastating oil spills and we need the courts to rein in his utter contempt for the law," said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is also involved in the legal action. "Offshore oil drilling is destructive from start to finish. Opening up more public waters to the oil industry for short-term gain and political points is a reprehensible and irresponsible way to manage our precious ocean ecosystems."
In a separate legal challenge, several climate action groups are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska to reinstate a 2021 federal ruling that blocked Trump from rolling back offshore protections that had been introduced by the Obama administration in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
"The Arctic Ocean has been protected from U.S. drilling for nearly a decade, and those protections have been affirmed by the federal courts," said Sierra Weaver, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. "Though these coastlines have been protected, the administration is showing no restraint in seeking to hand off some of our most fragile and pristine landscapes for the oil industry's profit."
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