World Ocean Day and the Ongoing Assault on Oceans
Trump Administration Focuses on Creating, Not Mitigating Threats
On Saturday, June 9th — World Ocean Day — at the first ever March for the Ocean, over 3,000 people marched past the White House in support of keeping our oceans healthy, clean from oil spills, and trash free. In addition to the White House march, more than 100 sister marches took place across the country and outside the U.S., including places such as Grand Bahamas, Panglao Island Philippines, Rio de Janeiro and Tamandaré Brazil, Cozumel México, Bali Indonesia, and London.
The March focused on stopping offshore oil drilling, reducing the massive influx of plastics into our oceans, and protecting and restoring coastlines.
Unfortunately, the March for the Ocean — and World Ocean Day — came amidst the backdrop of an administration that seems driven to reverse decades of work and consensus on protecting our oceans, our marine life, and our coastal economies.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced they would open up to 90% of all our coastal waters for leasing for oil and gas exploration and drilling. Offshore coastal waters are managed by a Five Year Plan, and the previous Five Year Plan had protected the Atlantic coast, the Pacific Coast, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the vast majority of the Alaskan coast. Even though this was only year two of the current five year plan, the Trump administration announced their intent to rewrite and reissue the Five Year Plan, with almost unencumbered access to our coastal waters by oil and gas companies, in the largest expansion of offshore drilling in US history.
The announcement was met with fierce opposition from both sides of the aisle, up and down the coasts. “The irreversible impact on ecosystems including marine mammals, fish, sea turtles, and other aquatic life that inhabit the ocean offshore is gravely concerning, as is potential risk and harm to our state’s economies, our natural resources, our military installations, and our residents,” wrote a bipartisan group of six Atlantic coast Governors in a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. In addition, the three Pacific coast Governors all expressed their strong opposition to drilling off of their coasts as well.
Unfortunately, while the opposition is strong, the Trump administration is still pushing forward, with a draft leasing plan expected as soon as fall of 2018.
But opening up our coastal waters to oil drilling isn’t the only way the Trump administration is attempting to move us backwards on oceans. In the middle of National Oceans month, the Trump administration issued an Executive Order that in essence re-wrote former President Obama’s National Ocean Policy (NOP). Gone is the emphasis on maintaining federal leadership while also working with states and tribes cooperatively to address threats to the oceans. Also missing are key pieces on maritime climate resilience, on marine ecosystem restoration, and on ocean acidification. In the words of the former Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Jane Lubchenko, “The Trump policy represents a significant step backward, a throwback to the 1960s when the primary focus was on aggressively expanding the use of the ocean with the assumption that it is so immense, so bountiful that it must be inexhaustible.” In place of the forward looking and cooperative NOP of President Obama, President Trump’s policy focuses on resource extraction, economic and security concerns, and abdicating federal leadership in favor of local direction, with little regard to environmentally sensitive ecosystems.
While the Trump administration rushes to re-embrace the energy of the last century, clean, abundant, renewables continue to surge. A new report from Bloomberg energy shows that global wind and solar will comprise nearly 50% of global energy production by the year 2050. Expanding oil drilling in sensitive coastal waters makes no sense when there is no need for the oil, and we depend on clean oceans and beaches for healthy coastal economies.
Now that National Ocean Month has come to a close, let’s all remember how much our planet depends on our sensitive marine ecosystems remaining healthy, and that our coastal communities depend on clean oceans. Let’s all do our part to keep our oceans free from oil rigs, and plastic debris. And please join us in the next March for the Ocean.