A number of environmental groups are sponsoring a rally in Mission Beach against the Trump administration’s plans to open the Pacific up for oil and gas drilling. It will be on Saturday, February 3rd, from 11 am to 1pm next to Belmont Park (Meet in grassy area near Cannonball Restaurant).
The local event will coincide with other rallies across the state to protest the Department of Interior’s offshore leasing plan, which threatens California’s vibrant ocean-dependent economy, marine wildlife, and the health of communities along the West Coast.
The demonstration, entitled “Hands Across the Sand: San Diego’s Voice Matters”, is hosted by Oceana, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and 350, and a number of local politicians – Democrats and Republicans – are scheduled to speak. They include U.S. Representative Scott Peters (District 52), Chairwoman Kristin Gaspar (San Diego County Board of Supervisors), State Assembly Member Rocky Chavez (District 76),
Councilmember Lorie Zapf (City of San Diego, District 2), and Councilmember Georgette Gomez (City of San Diego, District 9).
After speakers, organizers will have participants join hands for a photo op, to send to the Trump Administration, calling on them to deliver on their promise to consider coastal voices and remove the Pacific Ocean from their radical and dangerous drilling proposal.
On January 4, the Trump administration released the 2019-2024 draft plan to sell decades-long oil and gas leases in U.S. waters. The proposal was met by fierce opposition from local, state, and federal leaders in almost every coastal state. That includes Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Xavier Becerra from California, where a massive oil spill in 1969 devastated Santa Barbara’s coastal habitat and set in motion bipartisan support for a ban on new drilling in state waters that became law in 1994.
There have not been any new leases in federal waters since 1984. Oil drilling remains deeply unpopular in California, where 7 in 10 people oppose new offshore drilling,according to a July 2017 survey from the Public Policy Institute of California. Tourism, recreation and fishing along California’s coast generate nearly $20 billion a year and support 400,000 jobs.
The federal government has scheduled a single public hearing in Sacramento on Feb. 8 to cover the entire state, far from coastal communities who stand to lose the most from offshore drilling.
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