Offshore Wind
Offshore wind promises a future of clean, abundant energy.
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Seismic Airgun Blasting
Seismic airgun blasting threatens marine life, coastal communities, and local economies.
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Offshore Drilling
Opening new areas to offshore drilling poses dangerous and unacceptable risks.
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Overview
Oceana uses science and advocacy to drive policies aimed at stopping climate change. Our three current areas of focus are preventing offshore drilling, preventing seismic airgun blasting, and promoting responsibly-sited offshore wind energy.
Perhaps the gravest threat to our oceans and our planet is a changing climate. Unprecedented levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are warming the planet and disrupting weather patterns, leading to flooding, melting ice, rising seas, droughts, and the devastation of ecosystems on land and at sea. Oceans are among the most effective buffers against climate change, but as more carbon is absorbed by the oceans they become more acidic, reducing their capacity for absorbing fossil fuel emissions. This acidification is killing shellfish and corals—vital components of the entire food web—threatening marine populations from the smallest polyps to the largest whales. Oceana is determined to help end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, the leading source of carbon pollution on the planet. We use science, advocacy, communications, litigation, and grassroots organizing to win policy victories that prevent the expansion of offshore drilling and seismic airgun blasting, and that promote the responsible development of clean offshore wind energy.
Victories
January 6, 2025
United States’ Coastlines Permanently Protected from New Offshore Drilling
President Biden permanently protected more than 625 million acres of United States federal waters, including the East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico, and areas off Alaska’s Bering Sea, from new offshore oil and gas drilling. U.S. coastlines support billions of dollars of economic activity, generated by industries such as tourism and fishing, which depend on clean, abundant, and healthy oceans. Oceana’s campaigning alongside allies, including coastal communities and businesses, was instrumental in achieving these protections and follows a bipartisan tradition of protecting our coasts. Stopping new offshore drilling will help turn the corner on fossil fuels as we face the climate crisis, secure coastal livelihoods, and ensure healthy oceans for future generations.
July 31, 2024
The United Kingdom Commits to No New Oil and Gas Drilling
The United Kingdom government was elected on and adopted a new policy of no new oil and gas licensing throughout the country. This victory follows campaigning by Oceana and our allies to stop the expansion of offshore oil and gas drilling in U.K. waters and end the chronic oil pollution that wreaks havoc on marine life and the environment.
December 15, 2023
President Biden’s Five-Year Plan Protects US Waters from Expanded Offshore Drilling
In the United States, the Biden administration finalized its Five-Year Plan for offshore oil and gas leasing – with the fewest number of proposed lease sales to date. The plan offers three lease sales in the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico, and fully protects the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico from new offshore drilling. This Five-Year Plan process began in 2018 under President Trump, who proposed 47 offshore drilling lease sales, the largest number ever proposed. Oceana was instrumental in stopping the expansion of drilling beyond the Gulf of Mexico and minimizing new lease sales in the Gulf. Oceana will continue to campaign with our allies to permanently protect U.S. coasts from new offshore drilling, which will help fight climate change and safeguard the communities, businesses, and wildlife that rely on a healthy ocean.
November 13, 2023
New Law in Belize Gives People the Power to Protect Offshore Oil Moratorium
The Government of Belize passed a new law that requires any decision to open its ocean to oil and gas drilling to first be voted on by the Belizean people through a national referendum. Belize is home to 40% of the second largest barrier reef system in the world (and the largest in the Western Hemisphere). Belizeans’ lives are inextricably tied to the sea and a third of the country’s economy is driven by tourism and fisheries. This victory would not have been possible without campaigning by Oceana and its allies, who secured 22,090 signed petitions from Belizean voters to ensure that “people power” is at the center of decisions about the long-term future of the country’s reef, ocean, and the livelihoods its resources sustain. In 2017, Oceana, the people of Belize, and the Belizean government made history by unanimously passing an indefinite moratorium on offshore oil in Belize.
October 1, 2020
Seismic Airgun Blasting Efforts Halted in Atlantic Ocean
Oceana and a coalition of groups filed suit in U.S. federal court and won a ruling stopping the government from granting permits allowing this dangerous and deadly practice and effectively stopping it from going forward in the Atlantic Ocean as planned. Seismic airguns create one of the loudest manmade sounds in the ocean to search for oil and gas beneath the seafloor, which can injure or kill marine animals from zooplankton to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Oceana, our allies, and thousands of coastal communities and businesses have campaigned against this dangerous practice for years. This long-fought legal battle challenged the issuance of Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs), which are federal government-issued permits needed by seismic companies to harass and harm ocean animals while blasting the Atlantic Ocean.
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PROTECT OUR OCEANS
News & Reports
Press Releases
February 3, 2025
Oceana Reacts to Interior Orders That Expand Offshore Drilling
Blog
October 18, 2023
Reports
Around the Web
March 24, 2025
Source: USA TODAY
February 25, 2025
Source: Public News Service
February 20, 2025
Source: Euronews
January 20, 2025
Source: Fox5 DC
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