Kelp forests are extraordinarily important concentrations of biodiversity and are extremely threatened, along the Oregon coast and around the world.

We don’t have to despoil the environment and view off the shore of Oregon to produce carbon-free electricity.

This is the first part of a two-part series on the threat of new oil and gas exploitation off the coasts of the United States. This first part outlines the Trump administration’s draft proposal and answers five key questions about what the impacts of the proposed development might be.

There might be far more or far less oil and gas offshore Oregon and Washington than the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has estimated (see last weeks Public Lands Blog post). In any case, we really cannot afford to find out, as the only prudent course is to Keep It in the Ground and out of the atmosphere. This means all fossil fuels, offshore and onshore.

Congress has not reauthorized or amended the NMSA since 2000. Now would not be a good time to try. Recent history, under both a Republican and a Democratic president, has shown that serious large-scale ocean conservation occurs only with the use of the Antiquities Act.