On the recordFebruary 6, 2018
I appreciate that Senator Cantwell organized this time for a group of us to come to the floor to speak about this disastrous, insane plan to drill throughout 90 percent of our coastal shelf. This, the Interior Secretary tells us, is part of President Trump's directive to rebuild the offshore oil and gas program, but he also conveyed it was the President's directive to ``take into consideration the local and State voices.'' Well, certainly the draft plan--if you can call it a draft--didn't take into account local or State voices. Had the Interior Secretary bothered to actually consult, this is what he would have heard from people in Oregon. Our Governor, Kate Brown, denounced the plan, saying: ``In what universe would this be okay?'' Noah Oppenheim, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, stated: The Trump administration wants to put fish and fisheries at significant risk while lining the pockets of their oil industry co-conspirators. Meanwhile, more frequent oil spills and more intense ocean acidification and ocean warming are guaranteed to ensue. Charlie Plybon, the Oregon policy manager at Surfrider Foundation, an organization made up of everyday people passionate about protecting our oceans and our beaches, shared this opinion: We are united in an understanding of the threats which offshore oil drilling poses to our coastal economy, jobs and culture we have today.…





