Oil spill helps groups lobby

Environmentalists are renewing efforts to end offshore drilling.

By Ambreen Ali

Environmentalists are using the Gulf Coast oil spill as an opportunity to strengthen their hand in the climate change debate.
As the sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig continues to leak more than 250,000 gallons of oil into the ocean, activist groups hastily issued petitions and planned rallies to seal the coffin on future offshore drilling.
Last month, groups like Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council appeared ready to go along with President Obama’s plan to expand coastal drilling. Democrats argued that the concession was necessary for moderate lawmakers to support a climate and energy bill.
This week, those two and dozens more of the nation’s most influential environmental groups sent senators a letter saying that "any expanded offshore exploration and drilling should be off the table."
"There's no question that it has changed the debate," Nick Berning, a spokesman with Friends of the Earth, said. "We've seen more engagement from our activists on this issue than we have in years."
In addition to signing the letter, Berning's group has more than 19,000 signatures on a petition asking the president for a moratorium on new offshore drilling.
Friends of the Earth had already backed away from the bipartisan plan hashed out by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) before the spill. Now the group is trying to convince lawmakers to do the same.
"It's hard to see how the bill could pass with drilling," Berning said. Kerry and Lieberman, who plan to introduce the bill next week even if they lose their key Republican supporter, haven’t removed the offshore drilling provision.
But the political tide seems to be changing.
White House officials indicated that the president could switch his stance on drilling, while several Democratic senators said they would not back a climate bill that expands it.
Activist groups are planning public rallies to ensure that lawmakers hear the public outcry over the spill.
A group of activists protested a meeting of the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston Thursday.
Sierra Club plans to hold a rally in New Orleans Saturday demanding that British Petroleum and the federal government help the fishermen and local communities affected by the spill. They are organizing smaller "solidarity rallies" across the country in front of BP gas stations in the coming weeks.
Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said the group was seizing the opportunity to drive home that the Kerry-Graham plan isn’t strong enough.
"We were willing to accept some offshore drilling if that's what it took to get Republicans to support the bill, but now we think it's totally inappropriate," he said.
It's very possible that offshore drilling will remain a part of the bill, especially because states have an economic incentive to develop deepwater rigs.
Paul Bledsoe, an energy expert with the Bipartisan Policy Center, said it's too early to write the energy source off.
"The long-run factors that have led us to deepwater drilling have not changed at all," he said, adding that much of what happens will depend on how political of an issue the spill remains throughout the summer.
If activists have any say, it will take a long time to clean up.
Ambreen Ali writes for Congress.org.