MCCAIN'S CALL FOR MORE OFFSHORE DRILLING IS BAD FOR AMERICA

WASHINGTON – The following is a statement from Rodger Schlickeisen, CEO of Defenders Action Fund, in response to calls by Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) to lift a ban against drilling for oil and gas along America’s coastline:

“Sacrificing our treasured coastlines will do nothing to change prices at the pump, but it will help to line the pockets of Big Oil companies already gloating over record profits. Senator McCain should have resisted the urge to follow the Bush-Cheney administration’s practice of misleading the American people. Like President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Senator McCain is trying to convince Americans that putting our beaches, oceans and wildlands at risk by opening them to more oil and gas drilling will significantly lower gas prices. The truth is exactly the opposite.

“Drilling in our fragile coastal habitat wouldn’t bring additional oil to market for more than a decade. Even then it would only cut gas prices by about two pennies a gallon. Americans are not willing to sacrifice clean coastlines and healthy oceans for a mere two pennies a gallon ten years or more from now – but Big Oil, and their friends in Congress, happily would.

“We can lower energy prices in the long run by promoting energy efficient technologies and curbing our nation’s addiction to oil. We already have the technology to get more miles for every gallon of gas and to power our factories and homes without fossil fuels.

“If more drilling really resulted in lower gas prices, gas prices should have plummeted during the current administration, which has never met an oil company it doesn’t like. Instead, gas prices have skyrocketed to the highest levels in history. Putting our precious beaches and oceans at further risk is not the solution. Senator McCain should stop trying to take America backwards.”

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The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (www.defendersactionfund.org) provides a powerful voice in Washington to Americans who value our conservation heritage. Through grassroots lobbying, issue advocacy and political campaigns, the Action Fund champions those laws and lawmakers that protect wildlife and wild places while working against those that do them harm.