Last year, Friends of the Earth filed a complaint against the U.S. Department of the Interior in the U.S. federal District Court in Washington, D.C., for violating the Freedom of Information Act by failing to turn over documents related to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s review of six national monuments, including Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the coast of Massachusetts. Zinke’s review of the national monuments is a thinly veiled guise to open up those lands to fossil fuel development and other destruction.

Marcie Keever, Friends of the Earth’s Oceans and Vessels Program Director, issued the following statement:

The reckless move by the Trump Administration to pursue increased offshore oil drilling is an appalling attack on our already imperiled communities, both marine and terrestrial. Climate science is clear that the remaining untapped fossil fuel reserves must be kept ‘in the ground’ if we are to have any chance of leaving a stable climate for future generations.

Friends of the Earth is committed to defending against dangerous Big Oil handouts, and we will continue the fight to safeguard our coasts, from the Northeast and Eastern Gulf, to the Arctic, and all the way to California and the Pacific.

Expert Contact: Marcie Keever, (415) 999-3992, mkeever@foe.org
Communications Contact: Erin Jensen, (202) 222-0722, ejensen@foe.org

The post Trump Administration to open oceans for corporate polluters to drill for oil appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner Marissa Knodel issued the following response:

Today’s announcement is a major victory for our oceans and climate. Our offshore areas need permanent protection in the face of Donald Trump’s pledge to expand offshore drilling and his cabinet’s ties to Big Oil. We must afford the same protections to the people of the Gulf of Mexico, which has become an energy sacrifice zone.

Donald Trump’s actions since the election have made clear that he will put Big Oil’s profits above Americans’ public health. No president has ever rescinded a previous president’s permanent withdrawal of offshore areas from oil and gas development. If Donald Trump tries to reverse President Obama’s withdrawals, he will find himself in court.

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Expert contact: Marissa Knodel, (202) 222-0729, mknodel@foe.org
Communications contact: Kate Colwell, (202) 222-0744, kcolwell@foe.org

The post Obama moves to protect millions of acres of ocean from Trump appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new offshore oil and gas plan from the U.S. Department of the Interior blocks two drilling leases in the Arctic, but allows a new lease in Alaska’s Cook Inlet and 10 new leases in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years – a step that will worsen climate change by ensuring significant greenhouse gas pollution for the next 70 years.

“The plan is bittersweet. We’re so happy to see the Obama administration protecting the Arctic but discouraged to see the door open for more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We can’t keep treating the Gulf like a sacrifice zone. With expanded oil drilling looming on the horizon, we need bold action on climate change now.”

With President-elect Donald Trump pledging to expand offshore drilling, a coalition of environmental groups called on President Obama to permanently protect federal waters from expanded oil leasing. Using his executive power under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to withdraw areas from leasing, the president could permanently protect our climate, coastal communities, and endangered wildlife.

“Today’s decision is a victory for the Arctic and demonstrates the growing strength of the movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. But we also need to protect communities along the Gulf of Mexico,” said Marissa Knodel with Friends of the Earth. “Unfortunately, Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to return to the days of ‘drill baby drill.’ That’s why President Obama must use his remaining days in office to permanently keep as much of our lands and waters from Trump and his oil cronies as possible.”

Leading climate scientists say atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations should be reduced to 350 parts per million to avoid catastrophic, irreversible impacts. To reach this goal, the vast majority of fossil fuels must stay in the ground. Unleased federal waters contain an estimated 75 billion barrels of crude oil, more than twice that of unleased federal lands. Stopping new leases in federal waters would keep 61.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere and oceans.

“Break out the champagne for the Arctic victory. Those of us in the Gulf of Mexico are proud and inspired by our friends and colleagues who have worked so hard,” said Anne Rolfes with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. “But the victory isn’t quite complete. We need to stop drilling in our Gulf of Mexico, too. We simply cannot burn this oil and stay alive on this planet.”

The proposed plan released earlier this year included two Arctic leases, one each in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, both of which were removed from the final plan. Cook Inlet remains in the final plan, with a lease sale scheduled in 2021, even though Alaska is on the front lines of climate change and warming at twice the global average rate. Under the final plan, there will be roughly two lease sales per year in the Gulf from 2017 to 2022, each of which will offer all available unleased waters in the Gulf.

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Contacts:
Kristen Monsell, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 844-7137 kmonsell@biologicaldiversity.org
Marissa Knodel, Friends of the Earth, (202) 222-0729, mknodel@foe.org
Anne Rolfes, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, (504) 452-4909, anne@labucketbrigade.org

The post Feds block offshore Arctic drilling, allow new oil and gas leases in Gulf appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

The Sanctuary represents one of North America’s most productive marine ecosystems and provides habitat to a wide variety of marine species including toothed and baleen whales, seals and sea lions, sea otters and numerous fish and sea bird species. These treaty protected resources also support four federally recognized tribal governments — Makah, Quileute, Hoh and Quinault.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that led the charge to successfully ban cruise ship waste discharges in all west coast sanctuaries, lauded the decision as a victory for clean water and called upon the Port of Seattle, the Washington State Department of Ecology and the Northwest & Canada Cruise Association to extend the same protections to all of Puget Sound.

“We applaud the Sanctuary for taking this step to protect the open waters of our nationally recognized coast,” said Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth. “Now is the time to ban cruise ship pollution in Washington State’s endangered inshore marine waters in order to protect the health of the public and our region’s diverse and vulnerable marine ecosystems.”

However, the only thing protecting Puget Sound is a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Ecology, the NWCCA and the Port of Seattle, originally signed on April 20, 2004, and which has been amended five times. Because there is no law prohibiting cruise ship wastewater discharges outside of the marine sanctuary, cruise lines using the Port of Seattle can simply seek permission to discharge at the beginning of each new cruise season.

Friends of the Earth, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and People for Puget Sound are formally petitioning these entities to amend the MOU to include a cruise ship wastewater discharge ban in Puget Sound and the Straits. Due to a change in policy in 2010, this is the last year proposed MOU amendments will be subject to an annual review. Following this year, there will be no public opportunity to update the MOU provisions until 2015.

Cruise ship pollution is a significant threat to water resources. While treatment is required to discharge wastewater, the U.S. EPA has found that older sewage treatment systems discharge wastewater in excess of federal water quality standards.

Each large cruise ship calling at the Port of Seattle is capable of generating more than one million gallons of wastewater in a single week. The port’s 2011 cruise season was more robust than expected, with 196 cruise ships bringing 885,949 passengers through the waters of the sound between late April and early October. While none of the 14 cruise ships that call the Port of Seattle home sought permission to discharge in Puget Sound waters this past season, there are no guaranteed protections without a permanent ban.

The Department of Ecology states in its public notice, “The MOU agreement supports the broader Puget Sound Initiative — a comprehensive effort by local, tribal, state and federal governments, business, agricultural and environmental interests, scientists, and the public to restore and protect the Sound, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca.” The proposed MOU amendment specifically supports the Action Agenda’s item C8.1: “Establish no discharge zones for commercial and recreational vessels in all or parts of Puget Sound that have nutrient and/or pathogen problems.”

“We all must do our part, including cruise ship companies, if we are to succeed in achieving Puget Sound recovery by 2020,” said Felleman. “Cruise ships calling on Seattle have demonstrated that they can refrain from discharging wastewater while in Puget Sound. By codifying this conservation commitment through the MOU, the NWCCA can be a true partner in the region’s economic and ecological restoration,” concluded Felleman.

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Contacts: Fred Felleman, 206.595.3825, felleman@comcast.net or Marcie Keever, 415.544.0790 x 223, mkeever@foe.org

The post Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary bans cruise ship wastewater discharges appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

The Sanctuary waters surround the entire archipelago of the Florida Keys, incorporating the productive waters of Florida Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.  The Sanctuary provides a safe home for brain and star coral, numerous tropical reef fish, spiny lobsters, bottlenose dolphins, and grouper.  Best known for the most extensive living coral reef in the U.S., the shallow near-shore waters are dotted with fringing mangroves and seagrass meadows.

Sewage dumped from ships traveling through the Florida Keys threatened human health and the Keys’ unique and diverse marine resources with harmful pollutants.  While the Florida Keys Sanctuary banned the dumping of sewage from vessels in state waters of the Sanctuary in 2002, ships were still allowed to dump barely treated sewage without limitation in 35 percent of Sanctuary waters that were federally controlled.

Thanks to a 2010 proposal by Florida Keys Sanctuary managers to ban vessel sewage discharges in the entire Sanctuary, and the thousands of Friends of the Earth members that wrote in to support the ban, the Sanctuary finalized the ship sewage dumping ban in late December.

Now the all of the amazing resources of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary are protected from harmful ship sewage!

Read more about our work to protect national marine sanctuaries.

The post Ship Shape: No more dumping in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Manufactured nanomaterials have unique properties due to the laws of quantum physics. Many of them are known to be toxic for reasons that regulators and scientists do not fully understand. What we do know is that various manufactured nanomaterials have already been shown to cause severe harm to aquatic life. They’ve also exhibited complex toxicity when they interact with the human body. Additionally, manufactured nanomaterials can quickly bond to other toxic chemicals, which increases the overall toxicity.

There are plenty of ways to fight this oil spill – with booms, skimming, and other techniques. These approaches are better than dumping toxic particles into the water, especially considering we do not even know the full nature of these nanoparticles.  This information is considered a trade secret by the company. Confidential business information should never trump public health concerns. The motives of global business and our economies should be of service to public health and the health of our planet. Businesses should not be solely motivated to make a profit through secrecy, which inherently puts our well-being at risk.

The oil spill that took place in the Gulf of Mexico is a tragedy shared by everyone on this planet. If we allow BP to dump even more toxins into the already battered Gulf of Mexico, what would it say about us? For-profit companies should not be allowed to compromise our and the planet’s well-being just so they can boost their bottom lines.

See AOL News article | Read the letter

The post Nano in the Gulf oil spill: Two wrongs don’t make a right appeared first on Friends of the Earth.

Our Recommendations to Obama’s Ocean Task Force

The disparate nature of U.S. ocean governance has led to a dearth of regulations surrounding industries that pollute our oceans, specifically, the shipping industry.  The commercial shipping industry is responsible for dumping great amounts of pollution into our air and water and has long avoided meaningful pollution controls.  The combined factors of flags of convenience, overlapping government jurisdictions, and moving pollution discharges have made it possible for the shipping industry to remain under-regulated.  Friends of the Earth urges the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force to make recommendations for our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes that address the lack of regulation surrounding the shipping industry.

Friends of the Earth Actions to Reduce the Pollution from the Shipping Industry

Read our comments to EPA requesting stronger vessel air pollution regulations.
Read our petition to EPA requesting stronger sewage discharge standards for ships.
Read our petition to NOAA requesting a vessel discharge ban in National Marine Sanctuaries.
Read our petition to EPA requesting regulation of vessel greenhouse gas emissions.
Read our comments on proposed Marine Highway shipping expansion plans.
Read our IMO submission on Arctic shipping impacts.
Read our comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding U.S. Navy endangered species impacts.

The post Our Recommendations to Obama’s Ocean Task Force appeared first on Friends of the Earth.