Enough is Enough

In the time since the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded there have been at least seven other major oil spills, three of which occurred in the US. Massive oil spills in Nigeria routinely go unnoticed including a nearly 42,000,000 gallon spill by ExxonMobil (remember them?) in early May. Most recently, 800,000 gallons of oil spilled in the Kalamazoo River, a tributary of Lake Michigan.

Even as news spreads that oil is vanishing from the surface of the Gulf, it is critical that we not forget the extreme anger that we all felt when the oil was gushing and that we channel that rage to ensure that clean energy reform happens now. The media, with the attention span of a schizophrenic five-year-old, will quickly forget that the Macondo spill even happened. Meanwhile, the economic and environmental impacts of the spill will persist for years. Make no mistake, a tremendous amount of damage has been done and will not disappear just because no more oil is (currently) flowing - at least not from Macondo. The plain truth is that extreme economic and environmental damage will continue as long as we, as a global society, use oil.

BP alone has been responsible for roughly 8,000 spills, emissions and leaks of oil, chemicals and gases since 1990. Simply put, there is no such thing as "safe" oil, just like there is no such thing as "clean" coal. Extraction, processing and burning of fossil fuels is dirty no matter how many safety and containment systems you put in place.

Further, fossil fuels are not cheap. Federal oil subsidies that continue to this day, billions of dollars of economic and environmental damage caused by oil spills and the true price of carbon all are not reflected in the market price of oil. It is essential that we institute further taxes on oil and establish a market price for carbon so that the price of oil reflects its true social costs. No, this will not destroy the economy. In fact, if we reinvest those tax proceeds in clean energy, it will speed the clean energy transition and help ensure that the economy prospers by creating high-quality jobs and lowering long-term energy costs.

It is time to rejects the tyranny of fossil fuels and move toward a prosperous clean energy future now! However, our government has all but abandoned the fight for our futures. Please call your senators today to tell them that abandoning the fight is unacceptable and demand comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation now!

Update: Apparently lying is innate to the entire oil industry and not just BP as Enbridge Energy Partners has understated the size of their spill in Michigan by at least 200,000 gallons, or 25%.