Clean Water Action Applauds Governor Murphy on Signing Ban on Oil Drilling

Point Pleasant – On behalf of Clean Water Action a national organization and its nearly 1 million members nationwide with 100,000+ in the Garden State and in the coastal states of California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia and District of Columbia, Clean Water Action applauds Governor Murphy for taking a tough stand against President Trump’s outlandish plan to open our ocean waters to offshore drilling  by signing the Shore Tourism and Ocean Protection (STOP) from Offshore Oil and Gas Act (S-258/A-839) into law today.

“The last thing we need is a Deepwater Horizon type disaster off the Jersey Coast,” said Janet Tauro, Clean Water Action NJ Board Chair. “We’ve been clobbered over the years; Ciba Geigy contamination, Union Carbide dumping, Oyster Creek radiological releases, not to mention Superstorm Sandy and recent string of ferocious nor’easters. Let’s not add an oil spill to the list.”

An oil spill off of the New Jersey Coast would not only devastate marine life, but would cripple the Jersey Shore tourism industry that reportedly generated $7.1 billion last year.

“Governor Murphy’s signing of the ocean oil drilling ban was one of two strong New Jersey initiatives taken this week to protect ocean waters”, statedAmy Goldsmith, NJ State Director, Clean Water Action.

Earlier this week, US Senator Robert Menendez co-led a successful effort to stop a federal bill, Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (“VIDA” – S. 1129), that would have allowed the dumping of ship ballast water into our nation’s waters thereby releasing invasive species that could devastate our native fisheries and organisms that could destroy infrastructure structures and ships at our ports.

Clean Water Action stands with the governor in betting on 100 % renewable energy by 2050 – energy conservation and efficiency, off shore wind, solar, community power storage, and electric vehicles – instead of more oil and gas. It will make the Garden State more resilient in this climate changing world – something few deny.  We can protect the ocean and grow the economy without oil/gas drillers and extractors making the Jersey Shore too polluted to enjoy and harmful to the marine life that call these waters home.

“It was a good week for the ocean,” added Goldsmith.

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Clean Water Action, founded in 1972, is a one million-member nationwide organization with more than 100,000 New Jersey members. We work to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table. We fight for clean water; environmental justice, and environmentally safe jobs and businesses despite the hostile anti-environment climate in our nation’s capital. www.cleanwateraction.org/nj

ANNOUNCEMENT: Clean Water Action is hosting its 32^nd Annual Conference with Tammy Murphy as its keynote speaker on Saturday, April 28, 2018. For more details and a full agenda, visit https://www.cleanwater.org/conference2018