Food and Water Watch letter to Biden
Are you in a group or organization who cares about climate and water protection? Food and Water Watch is looking for groups just like you to sign an important letter to the Biden administration.
80+ climate and environmental justice organizations – including Omni Center — sent a sign-on letter to President Biden and Interior Secretary Haaland to ban offshore drilling by creating a new Five-Year Offshore Lease Program with no new lease sales beginning in 2022. The letter also calls for Secretary Haaland to follow the law and reject controversial Lease Sale 257, the largest sale of public waters to oil and gas companies in U.S. history, and to cancel the remaining sales in the current five-year program. Sign-on letter here:https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Letter-to-Biden-and-Haaland-re_-Lease-Sale-257-New-Five-Year-Lease-Plan.pdf
The Biden Administration pushed through a sale of 80 million acres of public land in the Gulf of Mexico to Exxon and other fossil fuel industries, claiming that they were required to do so by Trump administration decisions and a decision by a federal judge. However, in January, Judge Rudolph Contreras, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, sided with EarthJustice, Friends of the Earth, and other plaintiffs in the case, who argued that the Department of the Interior relied on a faulty analysis that underestimated the planet-warming greenhouse gases and associated environmental effects from future drilling and development of the leases.
This letter asks that the Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland “immediately reject the bids or suspend the offshore leases under Lease Sale 257 in the Gulf of Mexico, to stop all remaining offshore lease sales planned in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and to issue a new five-year offshore lease plan that includes no new leases after the current five-year plan expires this year.” The administration has already acknowledged that ending new leasing will have no impact on jobs or the economy “for years to come,” since the fossil fuel industry has already stockpiled millions of acres for drilling that remain undeveloped and non-producing. Your groups signature on this petition is important to protecting future generations from climate change. Please share this and ask them to sign!
Gulf Waters Need Your Signature — very much!
