Healthy Gulf

I write from Cordova, Alaska. The beauty of the landscape is amazing and the similarities between the culture here and the Gulf are striking. The people here are dependent on the sea for their culture and their economy. The Exxxon Valdez disaster struck them to the core, not only destroying their economy but tearing apart […]

On the House of Representatives voted 209 to 193 to approve legislation related to the impacts of BP’s oil drilling disaster. Among other things, this bill:” Lifts the $75 million liability cap for oil companies involved in accidents,” Provides up to $1.2 billion in dedicated funding for coastal restoration projects paid for by BP penalties,”

BP’s oil drilling disaster has made it clear that, in the case of the oil and gas industry, Gulf residents don’t have much say on some very big decisions about the health of our coast and communities. For too long, large oil and gas corporations and the government have been the only one who have

On July 21, 2010, I testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard as witness in a hearing entitled “Turning Ideas into Action: Ensuring Effective Clean-up and Restoration in the Gulf”. The first panel of witnesses included an official from the Coast Guard and one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Recently, we joined with a number of conservation partners in calling for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to take all possible steps to protect Gulf birds that have been in impacted by BP’s oil drilling disaster. For some time now, we’ve been receiving reports of BP cleanup crews negatively impacting nesting areas, crushing

Photo Credit GRN/Matthew PreuschRecently, we began receiving reports of inadequately trained BP contractors crushing bird eggs and disturbing tern nests in coastal areas. These disturbing reports were coming from independent monitors – citizens, journalists, and groups like GRN – who have been out in the impacted areas working to make sure that BP and federal

Recently, the Department of Interior split what was the Minerals Management Service (MMS) into two separate agencies. The idea behind the split is that if the regulatory and leasing/revenue producing functions of the MMS are split, the conflict of interest will be removed and the regulatory agency will be better able to do its job.