House lawmakers approved a plan to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline and expand drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Unsuccessful amendments would have carved out a drilling exemption offshore of California’s northern coast, in the Everglades and in the Great Lakes. A bipartisan amendment to affirm that the bill would not affect funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund was withdrawn.
Without congressional action, between $5.4 billion and $21.1 billion in expected Clean Water Act fines would be on track to go to a fund to pay for the cleanup of future oil spills, as well as to the federal treasury, instead of the Gulf Coast. Take action now and urge your senate delegation to pass the Restore Act.
The Mississippi River Delta supports some of the best hunting and fishing anywhere in the world.
The delta hosts as many as 10 million ducks and geese during the winter—that’s roughly 70 percent of the waterfowl that use the Central and Mississippi flyways. And the Mississippi River Delta is one of the only places where you can catch bass, redfish, and tuna all within a few miles.
Unfortunately the BP oil spill had a devastating impact on the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River Delta. Hundreds of miles of shoreline were oiled; tens of thousands of square miles of Gulf waters were closed to fishing. The spill could not have come at worse time for spawning fish and nesting birds—and the oil is compounding Louisiana’s longstanding erosion problems that cause an average of a football field of marsh to vanish into the Gulf every hour.
Despite the continued threats to fish and wildlife in the Gulf, the Senate is stalling on a bipartisan piece of legislation called the RESTORE Act that will help the Gulf recover from the 2010 oil spill.
Without your voice, this common-sense piece of legislation may not make it across the finish line.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 12:00AM 
