BACKGROUND:

Our coasts and marine waters are destinations for thousands of vacationing families each year, sanctuary for fish and wildlife and a critical part of America's “sea to shining sea” natural heritage. They are the economic lifeblood for thousands of tourism and fishing communities, providing billions of dollars of economic activity and millions of jobs.

Oil and gas drilling would ruin our coasts and beaches. From 1990-1999, 1.8 million gallons of oil were spilled from offshore drilling platforms and pipelines in U.S. waters–an average of almost 500 gallons a day.

Additionally, each offshore operation produces 214,000 pounds of air pollutants each year, and tens of thousands of pounds of mercury have been dumped around Gulf oil rigs.

There are cheaper, cleaner, faster, and longer-term energy solutions like efficiency and renewables that will start saving consumers and businesses money today and protect our coastal waters, beaches, and economies.

Adopting both energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would decrease natural gas prices by $2.05 per million cubic feet, or 37%, in the first year.

Meanwhile, offshore oil and gas would typically not be available for at least seven years. But we can immediately start saving money and energy by increasing the efficiency of our cars, appliances and buildings, and growing the amount of energy we generate from renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, June 29, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 232-187 to repeal the 25-year ban on new off-shore drilling and bring new drilling and spilling to our coasts.

The issue now moves to the U.S. Senate. Last week Senators Mel Martinez (FL) and Pete Domenici (NM) sided with the oil industry and announced a bill that would allow new oil and gas drilling in eight million acres of the eastern Gulf of Mexico near Alabama and Florida's shores.

The bill would do absolutely nothing to reduce our dependence on oil by making our cars go farther on a gallon of gas or generating more clean, renewable energy.

Please call your senators today at 202-224-3121.  Just tell the operator your state, and they will connect you.  

Here's a sample message you can leave:
“Hello, my name is ____ and I live in _____. I'm calling to urge Senator ____ to oppose the Martinez-Domenici drilling bill to allow new off-shore drilling off the beaches of Florida and Alabama.”

To report your call, click here, or paste this link into your web browser.
http://pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=831&id4=ES

Then, ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this message to them.