{"id":3501,"date":"2010-05-28T09:46:55","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T13:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=3501"},"modified":"2010-05-28T09:46:55","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T13:46:55","slug":"preventing-future-oil-spills-congress-discusses-need-for-environmental-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2010\/05\/28\/preventing-future-oil-spills-congress-discusses-need-for-environmental-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventing future oil spills: Congress discusses need for environmental science"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post contributed by Madeline McCurry-Schmidt,<\/em> Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment intern at the Ecological Society of America.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of the Interior <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> yesterday morning that exploratory oil drilling off Alaska and deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico will be suspended due to safety concerns. The White House also said it has cancelled a drilling lease off the coast of Virginia. Fearing another spill like the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, officials cited a need for further environmental reviews and evaluations of nation-wide emergency response capabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Obama Administration\u2019s proposal of more rigorous drilling regulations is just one example of the ways in which the Deepwater Horizon incident is prompting the government to turn to scientists for guidance. In a hearing yesterday morning with the White House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said drilling regulators were warned of the dangers oil rigs posed on human safety and the environment prior to the explosion, but he claimed that \u201cthose scientists were <\/span>ignored<\/span><\/a>\u2026They were treated as though they were the crazy paranoids in the attic,\u201d said Moran at the hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The spill highlights the need for funding research on the prevention and clean-up of oil spill disasters, he said. As an example of the lack of scientific backing on the topic, Moran pointed out that one of the oil dispersants called <\/span>Corexit<\/span><\/a> (which BP used heavily until the Environmental Protection Agency <\/span>ordered<\/span><\/a> them to scale back applications) degrades into an endocrine disruptor, a chemical that can cause the feminization of organisms. \u201cThere are simply too many unknowns,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar admitted to the committee that the Mineral Management Service, the department responsible for oil rig permits and leasing, had been using 20-year-old environmental reviews to approve permits. While Salazar has been tough on oil companies\u2014he worked to halt Arctic drilling when he first took office\u2014he remains pragmatic regarding environmental concerns versus U.S. energy needs. Instead of turning away from drilling, Salazar spoke about the need to make drilling safer and expand efforts toward solar and wind energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) also emphasized that, although the spill is \u201ctragic,\u201d it does not change the U.S. need for oil. \u201cWe ought not to treat this as the death-knell of offshore drilling,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The future of offshore drilling will most likely be driven by economic, political and energy issues, but the members of <\/span>Congress<\/span><\/a> at the committee hearing this morning appeared to be \u00a0receptive to using scientific evidence to improve environmental safety. Rep. David Obey (D-WI), for example, called for less partisan debate and more research into preventing a future disaster: \u201cWe will learn more if our ears are open, rather than our mouths,\u201d he said<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo credit: <\/span>CameliaTWU<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced yesterday morning that exploratory oil drilling off Alaska and deep water drilling in the Guld of Mexico will be suspended due to safety concerns. The White House also said it has cancelled a drilling lease off the coast of Virginia. Fearing another spill like the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, officials cited a need for further environmental reviews and evaluations of nation-wide emergency response capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,48],"tags":[797,798,52,799,55,56,800,801,68,211,665,726,802],"class_list":["post-3501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology-in-policy","category-research","category-ecology-and-society","tag-corexit","tag-david-obey","tag-deepwater-horizon","tag-drilling","tag-gulf-of-mexico","tag-gulf-oil-spill","tag-ken-salazar","tag-mike-simpson","tag-obama-administration","tag-offshore-drilling","tag-oil","tag-oil-spill","tag-tom-moran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}