There is significant potential for expanded oil and natural gas production in the waters surrounding the United States, and especially off the California coast. The benefits of opening these areas to new leasing - greater supplies of domestic energy, lower prices, thousands of additional energy industry jobs, increased state and federal revenues - are hard to deny. However, environmental concerns, and in particular the risk of offshore oil spills, have for decades trumped all other considerations, and vast energy-rich areas remain off limits.
Bruce Allen, co-founder of Stop Oil Seeps California (SOS California), has for years argued that increased offshore energy production would actually provide significant environmental benefits to go along with the economic ones. SOS California's documentary film, A Crude Reality, demonstrates that the largest source of oil pollution in the waters off Santa Barbara and elsewhere is actually natural oil seepage from the sea floor, and that oil and gas production in these areas reduces the pressure on offshore seeps and decreases marine oil pollution. The public is largely unaware that past energy production has reaped these environmental benefits, and new production could achieve even more. Join us for the Washington, DC premiere of A Crude Reality, followed by a discussion with Mr. Allen.
More About the Speakers
Featuring
Bruce Allen
Co-founder,
SOS California
and
the Washington, DC premiere of the documentary, A Crude Reality
Hosted By
Ben Lieberman
Senior Policy Analyst, Energy and Environment
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