WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US government must end oil and gas extraction on public land and waters in the United States, US Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement on Wednesday upon introducing new legislation aimed to achieve that goal.
"Worry less about your campaign contributions and worry more about your children and grandchildren," Sanders stated. "I’ve got four kids, and I’ve got seven beautiful grandchildren. We have a moral responsibility to leave our kids a planet that is healthy and inhabitable."
Sander’s Keep It in the Ground Act would ban corporations from conducting new fossil fuel projects on "all federal lands and waters." It would also prevent offshore drilling in the Arctic and the Atlantic as well as halt new leases and end "nonproducing leases" for offshore drilling in the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite the president’s call for immediate action on climate change, the Obama administration has been criticized by environmentalists for approving oil giant Shell’s drilling for oil in the remote Arctic region.
