Power of the Pen: Write In for Real Energy Solutions [from Currents 7-29-08]
We need your help. With talk about opening more areas to oil and gas drilling, and gas prices at record highs, it is more important than ever to get the message out that drilling will not lower gas prices or solve our energy challenge—it will only benefit big oil which is already raking in record profits.
Please voice your desire to see real solutions, not more drilling -- write a letter to the Editor of your local paper. You can customize one of our sample letters or preferably write your own calling on Congress to stop giveaways to Big Oil, start investing in real energy solutions, and protect our coasts and other special places.

15 Days Until Florida Gets DRILLED – Unless You Act TODAY! [from Phil Compton, Sierra Club Regional Representative 8-25-08]

CALLING ALL SUNCOAST SIERRA CLUB MEMBERS: EMERGENCY ACTION REQUEST!!!

Florida's clear waters and world-class beaches draw millions of visitors each year, supporting a $53 billion tourism industry, a $14 billion marine industry and a fishing industry that injects over $6 billion a year to Florida's communities. Our tourism industry generated $65 billion in 2006, with $16.3 billion generated in payroll to almost a million (964,700) Floridians directly employed in tourism.
But all this is in imminent danger of being lost forever. Congress will vote within the next 3 weeks on whether to allow oil rigs as close as 50 miles from our shore. America’s best beaches, the pride of Pinellas County, famous world wide for their incomparable sugar sand, would soon be permanently degraded by tar balls. Many tourists who come here now to spend their money and support our economy would just go somewhere else.
Every Florida representative in Congress needs to stand up and be counted right now. The best way to make sure they do is for you to write a letter to the editor of the Tampa Tribune, St. Petersburg Times and other papers. Congressional representatives read every letter printed on federal issues like this. There’ve been plenty already printed supporting drilling – it’s time they heard from the other side.
Don’t we need to drill? No. Oil companies have access to 68 million acres that they haven’t started to drill on yet. And the Department of Energy says offshore drilling will not make gas cheaper before 2030, and even then, the difference would be negligible.
Instead, we need to move forward now to a clean energy future. Everything our beaches are made of will be part of this future: sand for solar silicon chips, sunshine, wind & tides for clean energy: all can move us away from dependence on foreign oil faster than oil off our coasts could be drilled. We can keep our tourism economy and have cleaner, cheaper energy too.

Following this letter you’ll find 4 sample letters to the editor. Send one in as is, personalize it, or write your own. For much more info on all the angles on this issue, cut and paste the following links:
www.sierraclub.org/coasts

www.sierraclub.org/bigoi

www.dontrigflorida.org
To submit your letter to the editor, click on:l St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion / and http://www.tbo.com/news/opinion/submissionform.htm Just copy and paste your letter in the space provided. If you write a letter to both papers (and we hope you do), please make them at least a little different from each other – papers don’t like printing the same letter another paper ran.

One more thing: when you write a letter, would you please send me a note @ phil.compton@sierraclub.org telling me you did? That tells us how many Sierra Club members are acting now, while there’s still time, to save America’s best beaches from getting drilled.

Phil Compton, Regional Representative
Sierra Club Florida Regional Office
111 Second Ave NE, Suite 1001
St Petersburg, FL 33701
727-824-8813 , ext. 303
813-841-3601 : cell

SAMPLE LETTERS:

To the Editor:

We know more drilling doesn’t mean lower gas prices – because we’ve already tried.  The number of new offshore drilling permits has tripled since 2001, and yet we’re paying triple what we were in 2001.

What we need is to get moving with technology that already exists, so that when Americans drive past a gas station – they can just keep on driving. We need a comprehensive American energy production plan that increases our energy independence and boosts our economy.

There’s no reason to think more drilling will lower gas prices – but there’s every reason to be suspicious of people claiming it will. They’re the same people who top the list of campaign cash from Big Oil. 

Rep. Gus Bilirakis, who represents the northern part of the Suncoast tourist industry, should be on notice: if you throw in with Big Oil now, sooner or later the check will come due from the American public. Don’t sell out the Suncoast to Big Oil.

Sincerely,

Name: ____________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________

(only the name of the city will be printed in the paper)

Daytime phone number: ______________________________________________

(your phone number will not be printed in the paper)

To the Editor:

Rep. C.W. Bill Young has long been the leader in protecting our beach tourism economy from offshore drilling. Floridians are still hurting because of gas prices – we’re still paying over a dollar per gallon more at the pump that we were last year.  Rep. Young now needs to again lead the Florida congressional delegation, this time to respond, quickly, to help families left holding the bag for eight years of misguided energy and economic policies.

Right away, Congress needs to end the Bush administration’s tax breaks for its friends in the oil industry, who already make hundreds of dollars from every American driver.  Instead of subsidies to the most profitable industry on the planet, let’s give that money directly to families.  That should be an easy choice.

More drilling is maybe the one thing we could do guaranteed to keep prices high.  It just can’t produce enough, it just takes too long, and it’s just for the benefit of Big Oil.  The only way we can protect ourselves from paying a fortune for gas is by using less gas.

Sincerely,

Name: ____________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________

(only the name of the city will be printed in the paper)

Daytime phone number: ______________________________________________

(your phone number will not be printed in the paper)

To the Editor:

One of the big missing pieces of the gas prices debate is that more oil drilling in the U.S. doesn’t necessarily mean the oil will even stay here.  That’s because any oil company from around the world can bid on new drilling permits.  It will go to the highest bidding firm, foreign and domestic.  And whatever happens, that oil will become part of the global market.

We shouldn’t be selling off parts of America to foreign or multinational companies, who take the profits overseas and then send the oil to China and India.  And even if the oil itself stays in the U.S., the price itself will be set by exploding demand in China and India.  When it comes to how much you pay, all oil might as well be foreign oil.

Rep. C.W. Bill Young has been the champion of our beaches for decades. Rep. Young should again lead his Florida colleagues in standing up for policies that let America be in charge of its own energy future, like ending subsidies to Big Oil and giving the money to Florida families.

Sincerely,

Name: ____________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________

(only the name of the city will be printed in the paper)

Daytime phone number: ______________________________________________

(your phone number will not be printed in the paper)

Say No to Offshore Oil Drilling

To the editor:

The oil industry and many of our elected officials support opening our coasts to drilling as a solution to high gas prices without sacrificing the environment. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Currently, oil and gas companies hold leases to 68 million acres of federal land and waters that are producing nothing. In the past 5 years the number of drilling permits has doubled while gas prices almost tripled. More drilling does not equal lower prices.

Oil spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita dumped 783,000 gallons of petroleum products into the Gulf as well as 457 broken pipelines. Do we want to risk Florida’s economy, employment and environment for a gamble that drilling might lower prices by a few pennies at the pump? State sales tax related to Florida tourism was $3.9 billion in 2006. Without such tourist-related revenues, how would we fund our already strapped governmental agencies, schools and infrastructure?

Say NO to offshore oil drilling. The offshore drilling moratorium should be renewed and our legislators should push for a renewable energy policy that will secure our energy needs, provide clean, green jobs and preserve our environment for future generations.

Name: ____________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________

(only the name of the city will be printed in the paper)

Daytime phone number: ______________________________________________

(your phone number will not be printed in the paper)