Earlier in the year, New Zealand ended offshore oil exploration. Now the US state of Oregon is set to follow:
Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced a plan to block offshore drilling off the state's coast on Monday.
"At a time when the states are doing more than the federal government to protect the environment, the Trump administration is trying to allow oil rigs to be built off of every single coast line in America except for Florida," Brown said in a Facebook Live event. "I'm tired of waiting for the federal government to come to their senses and realize this is a terrible mistake."
[...]
"Today I'm announcing that I will sign an executive order to permanently ban offshore drilling along the Oregon coast," Brown said, announcing she would work with state Senator Arnie Roblan, a Democrat who has spoken out against offshore drilling, to "make sure that no future governor can reverse this executive order with the stroke of a pen."
Hopefully other US states will follow suit. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to end the oil industry, and the first step towards that is ending offshore exploration and drilling. Though this being the US, no doubt we'll see a series of court cases over the balance between state and federal rights to regulate, which will ultimately be resolved in favour of whichever lobbyists control the political party which has most recently stacked the Supreme Court...
