detergent and water to get oil out. why does this still happen in 2021? you would think that after we watch, day in and day out, that picture of the oil gushing into the gulf of mexico and run our hands because it was nothing we could do about it, that we would ve learned something from that and begun to make a transition away from offshore oil and gas. but instead we didn t, we continued to sell leases in the gulf of mexico. we continue to allow drilling off the coast of california. i think it s really, it s really clear now as we sit and watch us, in this moment we have an opportunity to finally get permanent protection for our coast. it s being discussed in congress now. this is really a stark reminder, that we absolutely need to make that happen. and a lot of places along the look gulf coast, you can stand ashore and see platforms and rigs. same thing in california, you can see them on land and off land. what do protections look like? for people who are in these places, who loo
we re lucky when there s one close enough that you can smell it or see it. oil leaks from pipelines under the water and under the ground all the time. yeah, that s right, ali, when we drill we spill. it s not a matter of if we re going to spill the oil. it s just a matter of when, and we ve seen that time and time again. yet, at the same time, our government continues to let oil and gas companies do what they want to do in our coasts, even though when there s a problem like this, it ends up hurting the coastal economies, and that s before we even start talking about the fact that oil and gas are driving climate change. it makes absolutely no sense to continue with our sort of fossil fuel age when we know we need to be making that history. and the distinction you make is important. we can have this conversation, and on this channel we have it a lot about climate change and what we need to do about that, but the actual fact that after the deepwater horizon, the gulf of mexico, it was
striking the pipeline might be responsible for the breach. state and federal officials have launched a criminal investigation into this leak and the l.a. times reported just within the past hour that a branch of the california department of fish and wildlife, quote, observed sheen in federal waters several miles off the coast of huntington beach as early as friday night. but the coast guard was not notified until saturday when the company that owns the pipeline reached out. so all hands on deck to try to contain this thing right now, but every time there is a spill like this, it makes you wonder whether our obsession with oil is worth the inherent danger of the infrastructure that fuels it. joining us now is jacqueline savage, chief policy officer for north america and international advocacy organization focused on ocean conservation. thank you for being with us tonight, and look, i say this as somebody who consumes oil. i ve got a carbon footprint like we all do. we have to understa
announced it was actively responding to an oil spill. the city of newport tweeted, the spill is expected to dissipate through wind, sun, and wave action and is not expected to come ashore. it did not dissipate. it kept spreading, stretching 13 square miles. this is what the orange county coast looked like by sunday, people trying to dodge the oil as they inspected the damage. experts expect the oil to come ashore over the next several days. at least 126,000 gallons of oil have spilled from a pipeline connected to the platform. amplify energy corporation has launched an investigation into what caused this breach. the u.s. coast guard is also continuing its investigation. as of yet, we don t know for sure the underlying cause of the spill. but there are multiple reports tonight that amplify energy believes that a ship anchor
that they have their hands on if they can drill, if they are ready to do that, 75% of it is either unused or not producing, and that amounts to about 7,000 to 8,000 unused approved premise to drill. and so when we talk about stopping the expansion of offshore drilling, the oil and gas industry, you know, seems to think that s such a horrible thing, but in the meantime, they have more leases to drill than they could ever possibly even use. so we re not even capping the capacity of what we would drill. jacqueline savage, thank you for joining us tonight. the chief policy officer for north america and oceana. we ll be right back. we ll be right back.