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A dragonfly tries to clean itself as it is stuck to marsh grass covered in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in Garden Island Bay on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana near Venice on Tuesday, May 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

STATEMENT OF MATT PETERSEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GLOBAL GREEN, ON NEED FOR GREATLY EXPANDED RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

People in Louisiana have been working hard to rebuild their homes, neighborhoods and the region in a sustainable way after the destruction of Katrina. Global Green has been on the ground here since just weeks after the storm, helping them do that.

Now we are faced with another disaster, a product of lax regulation policies and cozy relationships with the oil industry (which started long before President Obama took office) combined with BP’s cost cutting decisions that are devastating the wildlife, marshes and the people of this great state yet again.

Global Green calls on the federal government to urgently provide resources needed to stop the leak, clean up our marshes, investigate the causes, and implement policies that will better protect our estuary and people immediately. It is all hands on deck time — for stopping the spill, cleaning it up, holding BP accountable (and not allowing it to hide behind semantics of “legitimate claims” to avoid making good on their commitment to cover the costs of the spill), and reducing our dependency on oil by creating a cleaner, greener future.

While it was important that President Obama halted new offshore oil drilling, the magnitude of this spill — and utter failure of BP to have sufficient contingency plans — points to the the need to put a moratorium on deep water offshore oil drilling. We strongly support President Obama’s long term policy of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. While the increased fuel efficiency announcement for medium and heavy duty trucks was a step in the right direction, we also need increased and accelerated fuel efficiency requirements for all transportation sectors along with investment in green, clean energy technologies that can provide jobs and economic opportunity for those communities devastated by the spill.

Now that President Obama has acknowledged that he is responsible for the cleanup, the full resources of the federal government must be deployed to the Gulf. BP may have the only equipment to stop the oil spill, but the US Government certainly has the equipment and manpower to manage a much more engaged and robust cleanup effort than we’ve seen to date.

We call on President Obama to recognize the level of desperation the Louisiana economy, communities and ecosystems – which provide much of our nation’s energy and food — are experiencing, and take action commensurate to the problem.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 28th, 2010 at 10:09 am and is filed under Eco Travel, Green Growth, Green Room, Green Street, Smart Energy, Wetlands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.