Issue Position: Environment - Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling

Issue Position

The National Marine Sanctuary designations prohibit drilling in the areas they cover. Rep. Eshoo strongly opposes new proposals to permit offshore drilling anywhere off the California Coast and has fought efforts to weaken the moratorium for over three decades.

The California coast is one of the most popular coastal regions in the nation and the world. To enhance the protections provided by the marine sanctuaries, Rep. Eshoo is an original cosponsor of H.R. 223, the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Boundary Modification and Protection Act, which enlarges the boundaries of these sanctuaries and makes the current administrative bans on oil and gas development permanent. (There is a statutory ban on drilling within the Monterey Bay Sanctuary).

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

Rep. Eshoo has always believed it would be a grave mistake to scar one of the last pristine landscapes in the United States for a temporary and limited supply of oil. The U.S. Geological Service estimates the oil recovered from ANWR over twenty years would represent less than a year's U.S. supply and would take 10 years to begin to reach the market. At its peak, drilling would produce less than three percent of U.S. oil consumption and, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, would save less than 4 cents per gallon for 20 years.

Rep. Eshoo is a cosponsor of H.R. 39, the Udall-Eisenhower Arctic Wilderness Act, which would make the ANWR a wilderness area, forever protecting it from development.

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