Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a quiet but crucial decision for the future of offshore oil and gas leasing. The court invalidated the Bush administration’s 2007-2012 Five-Year Leasing Program, which had authorized large-scale lease sales in the sensitive and vitally important Arctic Ocean.

In Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Department of the Interior, the court found that the Department of Interior - which is charged with selling the leases while protecting the environment - had failed to appropriately balance potential environmental harm with the potential economic benefits from oil and gas leasing. The government had arbitrarily decided that vast Arctic waters faced the same risks from oil and gas development as the coasts, despite the fact that we know very little about the Arctic’s unique and sensitive ecosystems.

Oceana submitted an amicus brief in support of the petitioners’ case along with the Ocean Conservancy, National Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Our brief is science-based and makes the following case - given how little is known about Arctic Ocean ecosystems, given that they are changing more rapidly than scientists predicted, and given that the communities in the Arctic are dependent on them, the government should not move ahead with leasing there.

Late last year, a contentious election cycle and high gas prices created a perfect storm that led to the elimination of both the Presidential and Congressional moratoria on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). After 25 years of consent on the drilling ban, the political winds shifted and now threaten to keep the United States on a path that remains dependent on oil - an indefensible path if we want to save the oceans from climate change and ocean acidification. Tell Congress today to reinstate the moratoria.

While drilling advocates like to pretend that offshore drilling is safe and there's an abundance of oil and natural gas waiting to be uncovered, the truth is that spills happen and the small amount of oil available in previously restricted areas won't even lower gas prices. What's more, any drilling allowed in the OCS will continue to contribute to climate change and ocean acidification by extracting large amounts of carbon-based materials that will end up in the atmosphere and ocean.

In the minutes after midnight on March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez poured 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The spill turned pristine spruce-lined waters into a sticky death trap for countless animals, including a quarter of a million birds. Yet two decades later, the lessons of Exxon Valdez have not been learned. Our oceans and wildlife are no safer from catastrophic oil spills at a time when fossil fuel-based energy makes less sense than ever.

After Exxon Valdez, President George H.W. Bush enacted moratoria on new drilling on the outer continental shelf of the lower 48 states. An earlier Congressional moratorium on the outer continental shelf lapsed in 2008, and the second President Bush lifted the executive moratorium. This left the coasts of the Lower 48 unprotected from oil exploration.

In addition, previously inaccessible Arctic waters have proven irresistible to oil and gas speculators.

Twenty years ago today, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound. On this somber anniversary, Oceana releases a report, Toxic Legacy: Long-term Effects of Offshore Oil on Wildlife & Public Health, which calls for the reinstatement of the moratoria on drilling in the outer continental shelf and Bristol Bay. The report also recommends halting current drilling activity in the Arctic while a science-based precautionary approach is applied to all oil and gas leasing, exploration, and development activities in the region.

A few of the key findings of our report include:

* When oil coats an animal it can limit its ability to swim or fly, and to maintain its body temperature, feed properly, and even reproduce.

* Many animals are killed directly after an oil spill. After the Exxon Valdez spill, 300 harbor seals, 900 bald eagles, 2,800 sea otters and 250,000 sea birds were killed soon after the incident.

* Oil can persist in the environment long after a spill. More than ten years after the Exxon Valdez, enough oil remained in the environment to continue to harm wildlife such as fish, sea otters and sea ducks.

In addition, Oceana's Pacific Science Director Dr. Jeff Short is testifying before a Congressional joint subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources today. Short is a distinguished oil pollution scientist who spent more than 30 years as an environmental chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) studying the effects of oil pollution, particularly the Exxon Valdez spill.

Two weeks away from the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and what happens? A Spill! An oil tanker yesterday lost part of its load off the Australian coast after being blown off course by a cyclone, spilling about 22 tons of oil onto Brisbane's beaches.

Meanwhile, some politicians still continue to call for more drilling for oil off of our own coasts. There is too little oil off our shores to free ourselves from foreign oil, and any oil recovered would only amount to savings of pennies at the gas pump.

Expanded offshore drilling will mean that our oceans and coasts are at an increased risk from oil spills. What is there to prevent a catastrophe like this or another Valdez from destroying our oceans and coastlines?

It is quite simple. The Obama administration and Congress must reinstate the moratorium on offshore drilling and stop all drilling activities in the Arctic. Spills happen and we need to protect our coasts.

Ted Testifies on Offshore Drilling

This morning Oceana board member and longtime activist Ted Danson testified in front of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources about the dangers of offshore drilling to the oceans and climate, and he called on Congress to quickly reinstate the moratoria on drilling that lapsed last year.

“Oil and water simply don’t mix,” said Danson. “While not intentional, oil spills do happen and they harm everything from the smallest ocean organisms to the largest predators in the sea.”

OVERFISHING - 90% of predator fish such as tuna and swordfish are gone. If current trends continue, scientists estimate that humans could fish out all commercial species by 2048. The new Administration should fully implement the Magnuson-Stevens Act to improve fishery management.

BYCATCH - Each year, U.S. commercial fishing operations discard more than one million metric tons of fish and catch thousands of marine mammals, sea turtles and other ocean wildlife. The new Administration should set limits on the bycatch of fish and wildlife.