WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Senate introduced legislation to prohibit drilling for oil or natural gas off the US Atlantic coast, US Senators announced in a press conference on Wednesday.
"We’re here to tell big oil that America’s coastline is not for sale, not now and not ever," Senator Bob Menendez said.
Menendez added that the bill delivers “a clear and simple message to big oil: the Atlantic Ocean is off limits.”
Menendez, the bill’s sponsor, argued that the oil industry "wants to bring Deep Water Horizon to the Atlantic."
Senator Richard Blumenthal argued that US President Barack Obama administration’s five-year energy plan prompted the legislation.
In early 2015, the Obama administration outlined a plan to issue new leases to oil and gas companies to explore and develop wells off the coast of the US state pf Georgia, Virginia and North and South Carolina.
"The administration rationalizes this saying it is a balance [in energy resources], but the cost of this balance falls inappropriately on our environmental values," Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal further warned of "irrecoverable costs" in the event of a spill in the Atlantic. Those damages "would not be borne by oil companies, but by taxpayers and citizens," he said.
Menendez noted that the Senators have not spoken to the Obama administration since it released the Atlantic drilling proposal.
The legislation currently has ten co-sponsors, mostly Senators from US north east coastal states, and a similar bill has been introduced in the US House of Representatives.
Opponents of Atlantic offshore drilling have defeated all previous measures to allow Atlantic offshore oil production and exploration.
