Gulf oil spill facts

Whenever BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, and sank towards the bottom of Gulf of Mexico, it killed 11 workers and spewed countless gallons of crude across a big swath of ocean and shoreline. It took 87 days ahead of the movement of oil could possibly be ended, although devastation to wildlife and livelihoods consistently today.

Because of the assistance of their allies in Washington D.C., the oil business features prevented reforms that would make drilling less dangerous. Despite an extended string of problems that generated the blowout, Congress has yet to pass through just one legislation to greatly help avoid future offshore-drilling disasters—even as business efforts expand in Gulf additionally the management views starting Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

The nation's high priced and dangerous reliance on fossil gasoline will continue to endanger the life of U.S. employees, the healthiness of our oceans, the lifeblood of coastal economies, plus the success of wildlife. There is certainly a better way—putting needed safeguards in position whilst changing to wash power resources that cannot spill or operate dry. Past offshore-drilling regulator Liz Birnbaum is right: "we've very long since achieved the point where we have to end drilling for brand new supplies of oil."

NRDC looks straight back regarding the individuals and locations where endured the worst associated with catastrophe, and whose resides are harmed by its impact—and the continuous blight of this fossil-fuel business in their seas as well as on their particular shores.