Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants to drill our coasts!

[BrklynLiberal]

313 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
[phone]
http://schumer.senate.gov/
Web Form:
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm

When we asked Sen. Chuck Schumer for his support protecting our coasts from Big Oil’s latest assault, he replied,"I support drilling in the Gulf of Mexico."

Schumer? CHUCK Schumer? The Senator from New York!?! That's right. We were shocked, too!

Please call Sen. Chuck Schumer and urge him to protect our precious coastlines and the wildlife living there.

Sen. Schumer ought to know that opening up our coastlines to drilling is a bad idea. The threat to dolphins, sea turtles, and a host of other marine species isn’t worth little bit of oil available off our coasts.

Sen. Schumer's position will help determine how this legislation will play out. His support for our nation’s beaches and marine wildlife is crucial!

Expanded offshore drilling would not only industrialize our coastline, it would create mercury and other toxic discharges that could destroy beaches and poison and kill marine wildlife. It is also disruptive to marine mammals, sometimes causing them to become disoriented and drown.

Big Oil’s allies in the Senate are moving quickly on a bill that would risk our coastal heritage. Instead of real solutions to our energy needs, they want us to hand over millions of acres in the Gulf to companies like ExxonMobil, already awash in record profits.

We need you to call Sen. Schumer today! Urge him to fight this short-sighted plan.

The best estimates indicate expanded Gulf drilling would only give us 47 days-worth of oil -- and that oil wouldn’t even become available for at least 7 years. By simply closing a loophole that allows SUVs to guzzle more gas, we would save the same amount of oil in just two years -- without risking our fragile coastlines and the wildlife that lives there.

There are cleaner, quicker, cheaper, and safer energy solutions that will save consumers money and protect America’s coastal resources and coastal economies.

Call Sen. Schumer today. Urge him to protect our coasts and focus on real energy solutions, like efficiency, renewables, and conservation.

It has been a really long time since one of the New York Senators has disappointed us on a big environmental vote. Send Chuck Schumer a loud, clear message to get back on track!

Thanks for all you do to protect our wildlife.

Sincerely,

Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife

[SmokingJacket]

1. They're already doing it.

Maybe that's Schumer's point -- if we need to expand oil drilling (IF!) maybe it's better to do it where it's already being done, rather than open ANWAR.

http://www.ddbstock.com/oilrig1.html

[Dr. Jones]

2. A thorny issue...we HAVE to drill oil SOMEWHERE...

we just have to do it while ensuring the environment is protected at the same time. To be fair, I am for ANWR drilling as long as it's done in an environmentally sound manner.

We DO need to decrease dependence on foreign oil, just have to do it prudently.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Why despoil ANWR - when we can despoil the

"Red Counties" of Florida's Gulf Coast -- Jebbie country.

I will not let them drill in the Don Edwards Wildlife Preserve (southern tip of San Francisco Bay) or off of the California Coast unless and until drilling is started off of the Florida Gulf Coast.

What is the price of non drilling?

1. More Bushie Wars of Oil Hegemony and Conquest - as fully set out and described in and predicted by Michael Klare's two books ("Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum" and "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict") and William Engdahl "A Century Of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order" -- just to name a few.

2. A global depression, as described by James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century"

It is probably too late to do the "conservation" thing with Priuses and Yarises and Mini-Coopers and mass transit and urban villages and transit villages ----- and avoid the Kunstler fate.

[TheFarseer]

4. I hope they have the good sense to get something in return

like higher CAFE or the immediate building of biodiesel plants or hydrogen and electric car infrastructure. Don't f*ck up the environment for no reason! If we just start drilling without getting something alternative going, we flat out aren't helping ourselves.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. Drilling only makes the oil companies richer. Invest all the money that

would be used for off-shore drilling into developing alternative energy sources, and give tax breaks for solar panels, public transportation and hybrid cars and all the other behaviors that would CONSERVE energy instead of wasting it!

[Coastie for Truth]

6. Why should the oil companies "invest" and "reap the benefits"

It is not the oil companies' oil - or the government's oil. It is OUR oil.

Let them drill with a confiscatory severance tax - and no tax breaks, none, nada, zippo tax breaks. And an excess profits tax - on post-severance tax profits.

And put the severance tax proceeds - and excess profits tax proceeds - into, as you suggest, developing alternative energy sources, and give tax breaks for solar panels, public transportation and hybrid cars and all the other behaviors that would CONSERVE energy instead of wasting it!