Issue Position: Protecting the Environment

Issue Position

We must learn a life-changing lesson from the Deepwater Horizon disaster, an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented scale still unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. As the Gulf Stream threatens to carry the spilled oil up the east coast, Rhode Islanders need a congressman who will aggressively protect our state's natural resources and the fishing and tourism industries that thrive off of the Ocean State's pristine shores.

Bold New Legislation

Anthony Gemma believes that Congress must take a strong stand to protect America's coasts and the people who depend on them. He knows that BP's horrible negligence cannot go unpunished and supports the removal of the liability cap on economic damages caused by the oil spill.

Moreover, the very first piece of legislation that Anthony Gemma will offer as your Congressman is a law mandating that oil companies drill relief wells in advance, before a spill occurs. This important legislation ensures that Americans will never again have to wait for months to stop an oil leak.

Gemma will also push for tougher regulations on offshore drilling, including putting an end to offshore oil drilling at depths greater than 3000 feet so that drilling sites can be accessed by manned submarines.

Energy for the Future

Anthony Gemma believes that clean energy, including wind and solar, is the best way both to provide new jobs for Rhode Islanders and to protect our great state's natural resources. He will join the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, a Congressional caucus that is working to put the clean energy technologies of the future in place today. Americans deserve to be free of the dependence on fossil fuels, as the threat posed to both our national security as well as to the environment.

Stay Informed

It has taken weeks for the American public, lawmakers and the media to gather enough information to realize that BP's application to drill in the Gulf of Mexico was riddled with errors of fact, that both safety procedures and preventive mechanisms failed, and that remediation and clean-up technologies are grossly inadequate to the task at hand.

When Gemma is elected to Congress he will create a workgroup, consisting of faculty from the Naval War College and the Marine Biology Program at the University of Rhode Island among other experts, to inform him, the people of Rhode Island and the media on the Deepwater Horizon disaster and other pressing environmental concerns. By pro-actively convening a group of policy experts, Gemma will be poised to take decisive and informed action to protect the Ocean State.

On his congressional website Anthony Gemma plans to offer daily updates on the situation in the Gulf, compiling scientific articles, transcripts and videos of congressional hearings, blogs, and other web resources to keep his constituents in the First Congressional District up to date with the latest news and research. These are tools available to us in the 21st century and Anthony Gemma has the drive and expertise to utilize them.

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