OIL/ENERGY POLICY
Governors asked to help revive offshore leasing at energy summit
Coalition Calls for End to $122 billion in Handouts to Fossil Fuels
http://priceofoil.org/2011/10/04/coalition-calls-for-end-to-122-billion-in-handouts-to-fossil-fuels/
"Eliminating subsidies to the fossil fuels industry could reduce the national debt by $122 billion over ten years while bettering the environment and public health for America's families these leaders asserted. "Americans of all political orientations strongly favor ending these subsidies to the oil, gas and coal industries" they wrote, adding that "[M]ost Americans feel that Members of Congress are more responsive to their campaign donors than their constituents. Working to remove subsidies from the fossil fuel industry is one of the clearest ways you can help restore your constituents' faith in the ability of Congress to represent them.""
OECD, IEA Urge Cuts to Fuel Subsidies
"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Energy Agency Tuesday urged governments world-wide to cut billions of dollars in fossil-fuel subsidies, arguing the rollbacks would bolster sagging government budgets while cutting wasteful energy use and carbon emissions. A group of 24 industrialized countries now spends $45 billion to $75 billion annually on more than 250 support measures to producers and consumers..."
U.S. Regulators Promise Oversight Of Offshore Drilling Contractors (NPR)
CUBA/FLORIDA
Concern Grows Over Plan to Drill for Oil Near Florida Keys
"The location of the proposed drilling is only 65 miles from the Marquesas Keys, an uninhabited group of islands near Key West, in an area of strong 4-6 mile per hour currents that come from the Gulf of Mexico, shoot through the Florida Straits and then churn northwards up the Atlantic Coast of the continental U.S. A wide swath of protected areas could be threatened, including the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary -- which spans some 2,800-square-nautical-miles and includes important repositories of coral reefs, seagrass and 1,600 miles of mangrove shoreline -- and Biscayne National Park, an area that contains the beginning of the third-largest coral reef in the world and mangrove areas along its shore. The million-plus acre Everglades National Park -- a subtropical wilderness that has famously been described as a "river of grass" -- is also nearby."
VIRGINIA
No offshore oil drilling for Virginia (Chesapeake Climate Action Network)
"Let's make Virginia a leader in offshore wind, not oil!"
