DO THIS NOW: Protect Our Coastlines from Offshore Drilling!

On January 4th, the Trump administration unveiled a plan to allow offshore drilling in nearly all waters off the continental US, opening areas in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans along with the Gulf of Mexico.

The proposal follows an Executive Order from April instructing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review offshore locations that can be leased out for oil and gas drilling. This included a formal review of the Obama Administration's finalized 5-year (2017-2022) plan that limited drilling areas in the Arctic and Atlantic, as well as Obama's use of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953 to permanently safeguard nearly 120 million acres off our eastern and Alaskan shores.

There is bipartisan agreement that offshore drilling endangers our coastal communities and does more harm than good to our economy. BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill polluted over 1,000 miles of coastline and led to a loss of over $952 million in fishermen's sales and over $6 billion for the tourism industry. And this was only one of the nearly 600 oil spills that have occurred since 2001. Oil and gas companies own the rights to millions of acres of untapped offshore land; they don't need the federal government, and the American people, to unnecessarily hand over more.

To counter Trump's push toward more drilling, Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) and Rep. Pallone (D-NJ-6) have introduced the COAST Anti-Drilling Act, S. 999 / H.R. 2272, to permanently prohibit offshore drilling on the Continental Shelf areas in the Atlantic Ocean and Straits of Florida.

Call your members of congress and say:

Hi, my name is [NAME] and I'm a concerned constituent from [CITY, ZIP].

I'm calling to express my shock at Trump’s decision to open US coastal waters to offshore drilling. I ask the Senator/Representative to support [H.R. 2272 for House/S. 999 for Senate], the COAST Anti-Drilling Act, to protect our fragile coastal regions. Oil spills are inevitable and lead to grave economic and environmental consequences for our coastal communities.

Thank you for your time and attention.

[NOTE: If leaving a voicemail please leave your full street address to ensure you call is tallied.]

H/T to FiveCalls for this CTA