Current Actions

• No Arctic Drilling!

  Just a couple weeks ago, a draft plan for offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters over the next five years was released by the Obama administration that includes potential drilling in America’s pristine and fragile Arctic Ocean - despite the fact that there’s no proven way to clean up a spill in the Arctic’s extreme, remote conditions.

  Now, President Obama has asked for your input on his first offshore drilling program before it becomes final. When it comes to the Arctic, the president’s proposed draft plan can be only be characterized as business as usual – but there’s still time to make our voices heard. Speak out now and tell President Obama to keep Arctic drilling out of the final version.

• Speak out now to protect the Arctic Refuge

  Right now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking your input on a plan for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that, for the first time, could recommend Wilderness protection for the Coastal Plain – the Refuge’s biological epicenter that has been in Big Oil’s sights for decades. A Wilderness recommendation would protect this unparalleled area and the abundant wildlife that depends on it, including polar bears, musk oxen, caribou, and millions of birds from around the globe.

  If Americans speak with a loud and united voice, we’ll send a strong message that the Fish and Wildlife Service can’t ignore.  Will you speak up for the Arctic Refuge by signing this letter by November 15th?
  

• Urge Governor Jerry Brown to Protect California’s Coast from Oil Spill Disasters

  The California Legislature recently passed the Oil Spill Preparedness Act (AB 1112), an important measure that will protect California’s coastline from the threat of catastrophic oil spills, while ensuring that Big Oil pays, not the citizens of California.

  Assembly Bill 1112 now moves to Governor Jerry Brown's desk, awaiting his signature. We need to make sure that we clear this final hurdle and protect our coasts!

  Please take action now to urge Governor Brown to sign AB1112, a bill that would help protect California’s oceans, coasts, bays, wildlife and communities from the devastating impacts of an oil spill disaster.

• Protect California’s Coast from Oil Spills!

  Oil companies are working hard this week to block a bill that protects California’s magnificent coast, its fishing and tourism industries, and its marine wildlife from devastating oil spills. We need you to take action now.

  Our state oil spill prevention and response programs are facing dramatic cutbacks, unless they receive adequate funding from oil companies. California lawmakers are voting as early as Monday on a bill to tighten up oil spill prevention standards and to increase oil companies’ funding for this common sense prevention program.
  

  The “Oil Spill Preparedness Act” (Assembly Bill 1112) ensures that our state’s oil spill prevention and response programs will have sufficient funds to remain solvent and the ability to pay for the necessary oversight and safeguards on board high-risk vessels in California waters.  Please urge your Senator to pass AB 1112!

  Calls are the most effective means of getting your lawmaker’s ear.  Click here to find your district’s Senator’s phone number and ask them to pass AB1112 to safeguard our coastal and marine environment!

  Alternatively, you can use the form below to write your Senator by August 28^th!

• Save California’s Waters from Oil Spills!

  California’s state oil spill prevention and response programs are in critical danger of being cut, unless we do something about it this year.   We cannot afford to jeopardize California’s vital marine environment—and the economies that depend on healthy oceans, bays, beaches, and coasts—by the costly impacts of devastating oil spills.

  California lawmakers are on track to tighten up our state’s oil spill prevention standards while ensuring that there are adequate funds to manage these programs.  The Oil Spill Preparedness Act (AB1112) ensures that our state’s oil spill prevention and response programs will have sufficient funds to remain solvent and the ability to pay for the necessary oversight and safeguards on board high-risk vessels in our state’s waters.

  Use the form below to write your Senator by August 15^th, urging him/her to pass AB 1112 and help safeguard our prized marine environment!

  Calls are the most effective means of getting your lawmaker’s ear – click here to find your district’s Senator’s phone number. You can also view the bill online here.

• Protect the Arctic From Oil Spills

  The future of America’s Arctic Ocean is in your hands.  The Department of Interior is making decisions this summer about whether to allow Shell Oil to drill ten wells in America’s Arctic over the next two years.  Tell Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to protect one of our nation’s greatest natural treasures – a vast, pristine place at the top of the world that polar bears, whales, walrus, seals, and Alaska Native communities all call home! 
  

• Tell your State Senator to protect our waters from oil spills

  California’s  coastlines and bays are a part of critically important ecosystems that support large numbers of birds, fish and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, and are the foundation for the fishing industry and our local economies.  When an oil spill occurs, no matter what the size, there is irreparable environmental and economic damage.  Oil contamination not only suffocates wildlife and impairs habitats, it causes fishery closures, affects the tourism industry through closed beaches and unsafe conditions, and costs taxpayers to clean up and abate.

  The California State Senate is debating a bill right now to prevent and protect California’s waters from oil spills.  AB 1112, a groundbreaking bill, requires the state’s oil spill prevention agency to increase its oversight of vessels conducting oil transfers. 
  

  Tell your State Senator today to protect our waters from oil spills – it’s vital that your voice be heard BEFORE Tuesday June 28.  Please act today!

• Put the Planet before Profits: Help Save Sharks

  Shark fining is a cruel practice whereby fins and tails are cut from living sharks and thrown back into the ocean only to endure a slow and agonizing death.

  It’s time to stop this cruel practice. California lawmakers are on track to lead the global effort to protect sharks, and preserve their contribution to healthy oceans and the planet. Use the form below to write your Assembly member by May 9th to urge him/her to pass this bill and save sharks now!

  Calls are the most effective means of getting your lawmaker’s ear – click here to find your district representative’s phone number. You can also view the bill online here.

• Just Say “NO” to Arctic Drilling!

  You would think that the oil industry and the government would have learned from disasters such as Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon.  And the recent spill in Norway has again demonstrated that oil cannot be cleaned up in the Arctic.  Despite this, and several acknowledgements by the federal courts that proper environmental analysis is severely lacking, the government is still proposing lease sales in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas - arguing that drilling is safe.  This is absurd.  The proposed 2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf leasing program continues America’s addiction to fossil fuels, putting greenhouse gas emissions and climate change before a healthy ocean ecosystem and Alaska Native communities.

  Don’t let the government give the oil industry permission to expand into America’s Arctic Ocean.  The Department of Interior is currently taking public comments on the new five-year oil and gas leasing program until March 31.  Join us today and tell BOEMRE and the Obama Administration to protect the Arctic and prevent dangerous new drilling!

• Put the planet before profits – Say No to Shark Fin Soup!

  Join the wave to protect sharks, the ocean, and the planet!
  
  The evidence is in: sharks are disappearing fast from the face of the earth. A major cause is the shark fin trade, fueled by demand for shark fin soup. Tens of millions of sharks are brutally killed each year for their fins; so rampant is over-fishing of sharks that ninety percent of numerous shark species are now gone from the ocean. As top predators in the marine food web, sharks help maintain healthy fisheries and the balance of these complex ecosystems, but now sharks—which have existed for hundreds of millions of years—could soon become extinct.
   
  Modern fishing practices have led to overfishing, and an increasing taste for pricey shark fin soup has exacerbated the drive to fish sharks en mass from the sea for the sake of profits. Shark finning is a cruel fishing practice: the fins and tails are cut from living sharks. The mutilated shark, often still alive, is thrown back into the ocean to endure an often slow and agonizing death. By just taking the fins, which take up less space on a boat than the rest of the low-value shark body, fishermen are able to stay out much longer and pull many more sharks from the sea.
  
  It’s time to put the planet before profits. California lawmakers are on track to lead in the global effort to protect sharks, and preserve their contribution to healthy oceans and the planet. Shark finning is cruel and unnecessary. Use your voice today to join the wave of public support for a California ban on shark fin trade!
  
  On February 14, Assembly members Paul Fong (D-Cupertino) and Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) unveiled landmark legislation, Assembly Bill (AB) 376, to ban the shark fin trade in California.
   
  Federal law does not ban the shark fin trade, leaving states to make their own decisions on the matter. The state of Hawaii has banned the trade, and Oregon and Washington are in the process of banning the trade. The Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands and Guam recently passed legislative bans to protect sharks.
  
  It’s time for California to stop the shark fin trade here. Sharks, and ultimately the health of our oceans, will continue to be in peril until we enact laws to stop the trade. California, a long-time leader on environmental issues, has a great opportunity to increase the global momentum for a ban on the shark fin trade.
  
  Send your letter today to urge our representatives to pass this bill now! They will hear this bill before the California State Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife on Tuesday, March 22nd. Calls are the most effective means of getting your lawmaker’s ear – click here to find your district representative’s phone number.
  
  Let your representatives know you, their constituents, support the California ban on shark fin trade for the sake of sharks, the sustainability of our oceans, and the health of our planet.

  Please personalize your letter.

• Send in your comments to DSL by following the instructions below.

  The Oregon Department of State Lands is now accepting public comments on the application by the Port of Coos Bay for a slip dock at the Port to accommodate the proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal.  Please join us in telling DSL to deny this application and protect Oregon from an unnecessary LNG terminal and pipeline!

  We've included a couple of reasons to oppose the project. Either send the message as it is, or alter the message to reflect your concerns. Then scroll down and click "send" to submit your comments. 

• Tell Santa you want expanded Marine Sanctuaries for Christmas

  Two pristine places in the ocean could gain critical protections as part of our National Marine Sanctuaries – vital waters off of Thunder Bay Michigan and the golden Sonoma-Mendocino coast in California – if the Senate (aka Santa Claus) hears our wish.  TODAY is likely the last chance to bring the Sanctuary Expansion act to the floor for a vote.  Please call your Senator’s office and  tell them all we want for Christmas is a YES VOTE - for the health of our invaluable marine environment.

• Make Sure Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Oil Spill Prevention Law

  Governor Schwarzenegger has less than two weeks to act on AB 234 – the oil spill prevention bill Pacific Environment is co-sponsoring with Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-Marin).
  
  Sign the letter below today and add your voice to the thousands of Californians urging the governor to SIGN AB 234!

• I want a Greener Apple

  In recent years, China has seen a wave of horrific incidents involving hundreds of children and thousands of people in communities across the country poisoned by heavy metal pollution¹, ². These problems are caused by companies that have put profit before the environment and community health. As a result, the Chinese government has stepped up its efforts to investigate and clean up some of the most notorious industries. China's environmental organizations have formed a Green Choice Alliance to clean up the Information Technology (IT) industry's supply chains, a notorious source of toxic pollution.
  
  This April, after extensive research and investigation, the Green Choice Alliance, a coalition of 34 Chinese organizations, wrote letters to 29 multinational IT companies to express concern about companies within their China-based supply chains that have been found to be in violation of Chinese environmental regulations. The Green Choice Alliance's investigation and the 29 IT companies' response were documented in a report that was disclosed to the public and garnered widespread media attention³,⁴.
  
  Some of the suppliers cited in the report and in the letters committed a number of gross violations, including using secret pipes to discharge untreated wastewater directly into waterways. Another company, Huaqiang Battery Ltd, is located near a village where more than a hundred children were poisoned by exposure to excessive lead⁵. The Green Choice Alliance urged multinationals to investigate the suppliers that the Chinese government's Environmental Protection Agency has found in violation of environmental regulations. The Alliance also asked the multinationals to commit to using publicly available data such as China's Water Pollution Map to monitor and ensure their suppliers' compliance.
  
  As of today, Apple has not yet provided adequate answers. Despite repeated attempts made by our Chinese NGO colleagues and Pacific Environment, Apple representatives have chosen not to answer specific questions and concerns. Already mired in controversy regarding the labor practices of its key Chinese supplier, Foxconn, Apple's secrecy and unresponsiveness to environmental groups calls into question the company's self-proclaimed commitment to social and environmental responsibility.
  
  Pacific Environment stands in solidarity with our Chinese environmental colleagues and applauds their efforts to address grave environmental health issues such as heavy metal poisoning. As consumers, we have a duty to ensure that the products we buy are made with environmentally sustainable and socially responsible methods. Apple is fully capable of cleaning up its supply chain and should commit to doing so. 
  
  Chinese consumers are writing to Steve Jobs urging him to respond to the Green Choice Alliance and address their questions and concerns. You can show your solidarity and join in the efforts by sending the following letter and voicing your concerns about the environmental impacts of Apple's supply chain in China.

• (No Title)

  While the ongoing tragic saga of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster continues to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, Shell is gearing up to start drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea in just 36 days.
  
  President Obama can and must halt Shell’s exploratory drilling plans.
  
  Incredibly, the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) acknowledges that the likelihood of a major spill in the Arctic is at least 40% if large-scale oil and gas development moves forward.  If a blowout does occur in the Arctic, the industry does not have the knowledge or resources to respond effectively to an oil spill in icy conditions let alone to respond to the devastation that it would bring to Alaska Native communities. 

  Worse, the Government Accountability Office found that MMS did not have sufficient guidelines in place to analyze offshore drilling risks in the Arctic.  As if this was not enough, the New York Times reported, “Managers at the [MMS] agency have routinely overruled staff scientists whose findings highlight the environmental risks of drilling, according to a half-dozen current or former agency scientists.”

  Our Alaska Program has been working tirelessly to stop a new offshore drilling tragedy from occurring in the Arctic.  They are working with the communities in the Arctic that would most directly be impacted – the indigenous communities along the Arctic Slope who depend on the marine waters of the Arctic for their traditional way of life.  Our friends in the Native Village of Point Hope call the Arctic their “garden.”  Help us protect their garden from offshore drilling.

  Pacific Environment is calling on President Obama to revisit MMS’s decision to allow drilling in the Arctic this summer. Allowing drilling to move forward risks the Arctic, and the well-being of Arctic communities for short-term gain.  The only wise course is to halt exploratory drilling so that we can learn how best to prevent a Deepwater Horizon tragedy in the Arctic. 

  But we can’t accomplish this without your immediate support!  As long as blanket exemptions and sweetheart deals are coming from government agencies that are supposed to regulate the offshore drilling industry, Pacific Environment must re-double our efforts in Alaska to stop drilling now. 

  This is your chance to tell President Obama to defend Alaska Native peoples’ traditional way of life and the Arctic environment. Get Shell out of the “garden” that supports the people of the Arctic.  Please act today!

• Say No to Another Gulf of Mexico-like Spill

  On April 1st, President Obama announced what we had thought was his idea of an April fool’s prank.  Unfortunately, it was no joke.  President Obama was serious as he outlined the details of his plan to open broad swaths of the nation's coastlines to offshore drilling – including some areas that have been off-limits for decades.  Drilling is dirty business and the environmental impacts are obvious. What's less clear is the future that President Obama envisions for Alaska's Arctic Ocean, and the wildlife and people that depend on it.
  
  Together, we asked the Obama administration to rely on sound science when making decisions about our Polar Bear Seas, the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.  We thought they agreed with us, but we were wrong.  Obama’s offshore plan spared America’s “fish basket,” Bristol Bay, from drilling and placed a hold on proposed development in the Polar Bear seas until 2012.  The President acknowledged that drilling shouldn’t occur because oil spills can’t be cleaned up in the Arctic and there is a complete lack of scientific information about the area.
   
  But while they talked the talk of wise decisions and sound science, the administration also gave Shell Oil the green light to begin exploratory drilling in 2.7 million acres of Chukchi Sea waters – prime hunting grounds for the Inupiat people and a critical migration route for endangered bowhead whales.  President Obama claims that this drilling is necessary to gather more information, despite the fact that the type of drilling proposed is the riskiest for oil spills. If this controversial portion of the plan is implemented, drilling will begin there this summer.
  
  This is your chance to tell the administration that drilling in the Arctic is no joke.
  
  Enter comments below.

• Protect Marine Life and Support Clean Energy by Eliminating Once-Through Cooling

  California's fleet of coastal power plants use an outdated cooling technology known as “once-through cooling” (OTC) that needlessly kills massive amounts of aquatic life each year including fish, larvae, plankton, sea lions and turtles. Once-through cooled power plants dramatically impact the health of our ocean, while needlessly wasting natural gas. As our report, “Green Opportunity,” details, much of the power that is produced by these aging power plants can be cost-effectively replaced by renewable energy and energy efficiency. Pacific Environment is teaming up with The California Coastkeeper Alliance and other organizations to phase out OTC. You can support our efforts by sending a message to the State Water Board.

• Keep Baikal Alive!

  Lake Baikal is No Small Change to Throw Away

  The Russian Government is treating the unique Lake Baikal like small change. Prime Minister Putin’s decision to re-start the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill obstructs the environmentally safe economic development of the town of Baikalsk and the whole Baikal region. The governmental decree, which Prime Minister Putin signed on January 13, permitted the mill to discharge its wastewater into the cleanest lake on the planet.   This is a violation of both Russian laws and an indicator of Russia’s unwillingness to deliver on its international obligations to keep intact Lake Baikal - a priceless heritage site protected by UNESCO.

  Sign the petition to UNESCO Director General below! UNESCO must address the Russian Government with a demand to stop pollution of Lake Baikal.

  Photo by Boyd Norton

• Tell OPIC to Improve Its Policies Now

  The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a US Government development finance agency that funds harmful extractive projects abroad, is accepting public comments on its Environmental and Social Policy until Monday, March 22.  We urge you to tell OPIC to strengthen policy measures to protect the climate, the local environment and communities.
  
  Over the past two decades OPIC has supported some exceedingly destructive extractive projects in developing countries including the Baku-T’blisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is worsening regional tensions in the war-torn Caucuses; the Sakhalin II oil and gas project in the Russian Far East which threatens the critically endangered Western Gray Whale; and the Kumtor gold mine project in Kyrgyzstan, which spilled cyanide into a river, killing downstream villagers. 
  
  OPIC’s Environmental and Social Policy contains important improvements, including a reduction of portfolio greenhouse gas emissions, which set a global precedent that should be protected.  However, fossil fuel project sponsors now seek to weaken these policies!
  
  The policy and other information is available at: http://www.opic.gov/doing-business/investment/environment/policy_revision
  
  Please help us improve OPIC’s Environmental and Social Policy by submitting comments below by Monday, March 22!

• National Ocean Policy Comments

  In 2009, the Obama Administration took big steps toward creating a “blue” presidential legacy when it established the Ocean Policy Task Force, which is now working to pave the way for the first-ever National Ocean Policy to coordinate the often-conflicting laws that govern the use of our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes.  In December the Task Force produced a draft framework to move forward with "coastal and marine spatial planning,” a tool that can inform management decisions regarding ocean resources and help resolve conflicting uses.
  
  Right now we've got a chance to weigh in on both the National Ocean Policy and marine spatial planning:  Tell the Task Force that we need a strong, conservation-based National Ocean Policy and marine planning that protect, maintain, and restore the health of our oceans. More than ever, competing activities such as commercial and recreational fishing, coastal development, offshore drilling, and shipping superhighways are creating impacts on the ocean and the wildlife that call it home.
   
  Please send the message below to the Obama Administration and the National Ocean Policy Task Force before the February 12 deadline and urge them to take action to ensure sustainable ocean planning and a strong, conservation-based National Ocean Policy.

• Tell Secretary Salazar to Safeguard Critical Polar Bear Habitat

  Proposed rule would help polar bears survive impacts of global warming, protect the Arctic Refuge

  This fall, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed important new protections for the threatened polar bear populations of Alaska.  With polar bears drowning as they're forced to swim farther and farther to reach solid ice and starving as the lack of sea ice cuts off access to seals, their main food source, designation of critical habitat is essential to save these magnificent and threatened marine mammals.

  The US Fish and Wildlife Service has identified approximately 200,000 square miles of potential critical habitat for the polar bear. This includes marine sea-ice, barrier islands and onshore areas—including important denning areas on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

  Despite the proposal, the US Department of Interior is attempting to give the go-ahead for Shell Oil to begin drilling exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, a move that would open the door for offshore oil and gas production in the Arctic, impacting not only polar bears, but also threatening Inupiat subsistence culture.
  

  By 2050, if current trends continue, 2/3 of the planet’s polar bears will be extinct, including those in Alaska. All will be gone by the end of the century. We must act now and continue to act until permanent protections are in place to protect these amazing animals and their habitat – meaning protecting critical habitat, reversing climate change, and developing a comprehensive plan to protect America’s Arctic.
  
  The administration is seeking comments on its proposed critical habitat now. Please tell the Obama administration that the proposed critical habitat is essential to the survival of polar bears and must be protected.