12.20.16

Grijalva: Arctic Withdrawal Helps Cement Obama’s Environmental Legacy

Washington, D.C. – House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva today applauded President Obama’s decision to permanently protect the Arctic Ocean and parts of the Atlantic Ocean from future offshore drilling.

“Today’s announcement is a victory for the environment, our climate, and one of the last great pristine wildernesses on Earth, and a defeat for Big Oil and their ‘drill everywhere’ agenda. The oil and gas industry will whine, but the fact is they still have access to over 70 percent of the fossil fuel resources underneath our oceans, and hold over 13 million acres of leases that they aren’t even producing from yet. We saw firsthand with Shell in 2012 that drilling in the Arctic simply cannot be done safely. This is yet another step in solidifying President Obama’s legacy as one of the greatest environmental presidents of all time, and I will never stop fighting against efforts to undo the progress made under his watch.”

In September, Ranking Member Grijalva joined 73 of his House colleagues on a bipartisan letter to President Obama asking him to permanently protect the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans from drilling.

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