Trump Expands Offshore Drilling in Assault on Biodiversity and Coastal and Indigenous Communities

Thursday, January 11, 2018 By Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now! | Video Interview

Media

Bipartisan opposition is growing to President Trump's proposal to greatly expand offshore oil and gas drilling. The reversal of the Obama-era restrictions would open more than a billion acres of water in the Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil and gas drilling. Initially the Interior Department moved to allow offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all of the United States' coastal waters, but then announced it has dropped plans to open up the waters off the coast of Florida, following fierce opposition by Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott. Scott is an ally of President Trump, and the state is also home to Trump's winter resort at Mar-a-Lago. Now governors and lawmakers from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Washington and other states are asking why only Florida is being exempted. We speak to Subhankar Banerjee, professor of art and ecology at the University of New Mexico. Banerjee is the author of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land and editor of Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point.

Please check back later for full transcript.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Nermeen Shaikh

Nermeen Shaikh is a broadcast news producer and weekly co-host at Democracy Now! in New York City. She worked in research and non-governmental organizations before joining Democracy Now! She has an M.Phil. from Cambridge University and is the author of The Present as History: Critical Perspectives on Global Power (Columbia University Press).

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's "Meet the Press."

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Trump Expands Offshore Drilling in Assault on Biodiversity and Coastal and Indigenous Communities

Thursday, January 11, 2018 By Amy Goodman and Nermeen Shaikh, Democracy Now! | Video Interview

Media

Bipartisan opposition is growing to President Trump's proposal to greatly expand offshore oil and gas drilling. The reversal of the Obama-era restrictions would open more than a billion acres of water in the Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to offshore oil and gas drilling. Initially the Interior Department moved to allow offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all of the United States' coastal waters, but then announced it has dropped plans to open up the waters off the coast of Florida, following fierce opposition by Florida's Republican Governor Rick Scott. Scott is an ally of President Trump, and the state is also home to Trump's winter resort at Mar-a-Lago. Now governors and lawmakers from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Washington and other states are asking why only Florida is being exempted. We speak to Subhankar Banerjee, professor of art and ecology at the University of New Mexico. Banerjee is the author of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land and editor of Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point.

Please check back later for full transcript.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Nermeen Shaikh

Nermeen Shaikh is a broadcast news producer and weekly co-host at Democracy Now! in New York City. She worked in research and non-governmental organizations before joining Democracy Now! She has an M.Phil. from Cambridge University and is the author of The Present as History: Critical Perspectives on Global Power (Columbia University Press).

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's "Meet the Press."

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