UPDATE: I've change the title to reflect that the agency made a last-minute extension of the deadline earlier today. It's no longer due at midnight tonight, but we don't know when it will be, so you should still comment as soon as possible.
If you oppose the proposed expansion of offshore drilling, please submit a public comment (public meaning your name will be attached to it unless you unselect that) to the official review process at the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service. The deadline is midnight tonight (Eastern time). Even a short "I oppose this proposed expansion of offshore drilling" would be helpful.
Direct link to comment form:http://ocs5yeareis.anl.gov/...
My priority in this diary is to get you to submit something at the above link (it's super easy!), but if you're interested, the following is the comment I just submitted, along with with my name and address. Just read it after you get the comment in!!!
I strongly oppose the proposed expansion of offshore drilling, as a Delawarean and as an American. The Deepwater Horizon catastrophe has reinforced my belief that offshore drilling in unsafe, unwise, and unnecessary.
We must move away from dependency on fossil fuels such as oil and move toward a clean energy future. This proposed expansion does not wean us off petroleum, but rather promotes continued usage of oil, even as the global supply continues to decline. The United States will not see energy supply or security benefits from this oil for several years, if ever. The amount of oil we expect to find in these locations will be a drop in the usage bucket by the time they are exploited, if current trends hold.
Economically, a UMass Amherst study found that we get an average of 16.7 jobs per million dollars invested in clean energy and green industries, compared to only 5.3 jobs per million dollars invested in oil production. If we want to create jobs and expand economic opportunities, we have to move away from oil and toward a clean energy future. We should not continue encouraging young people to seek careers in petroleum production, when they could be helping spur an energy revolution and avoiding soon-to-be-obsolete industries. Oil disasters are also crushing to local economies, from fishing to tourism. It is unacceptable to place such a large risk and burden on the people of the states near which this expansion would occur, such as my state. We are not given a vote in something that could profoundly impact our lives and livelihoods. Where it seemed theoretical before, Deepwater Horizon has demonstrated the real-world impact of a catastrophic oil accident.
Global warming and environmental issues will be two of the overriding problems in my lifetime. Oil is a major contributor to both global environmental damage and localized damage, as we see from rising average global temperatures (this has been one of the hottest years in the temperature record so far) and from the ecological devastation in the Gulf region right now due to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. We cannot predict when or where these spills and accidents will occur, and clearly we are unprepared to handle big ones. Improbability of an event does not mean it will never occur, as the current situation proves conclusively. Tanker spills, blowouts, storm damage to rigs are all potential sources of massive environmental damage from offshore oil production. The scientific community and some of the government's scientists say they have been sidelined or ignored in this process and believe the risk is greater than stated on many projects or this proposed expansion in general.
For these reasons, and many more, I strongly oppose this plan, and I hope that the public comments process helps persuade your agency to reject it.
After I hit publish, I'm going to go back and footnote some of this for those interested. I didn't do that in the comment itself though...
UPDATE @ 10:27 PM EDT:
Some notes...
For a summary (with spiffy tables) of the UMass Amherst report, read "Not all green jobs are created equal" by Tom Konrad at Grist, 7/6/09. I didn't have time in this public comment to do it justice.
For the scientists being ignored, here's a press release (among the sources I used): "NOAA CONCERNS BRUSHED ASIDE IN OBAMA OFFSHORE DRILLING PLAN" (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 4/1/10)
I'll add more if questions come up.