Observing both Earth Day and the fifth anniversary of the Macondo deepwater well accident and crude oil spill , US Senate and House members—largely Democrats from Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states—introduced bills to stop federal offshore oil and gas leasing off the Atlantic coast. The measures were responses to the US Bureau of Ocean Management’s draft proposed 2017-22 Outer Continental Shelf management program, which would include a single Mid-Atlantic lease sale in 2021 ( OGJ Online, Jan. 27, 2015 ). “Imagine the devastation an oil spill in the Atlantic would cause—not just to my home state of New Jersey, but to states up and down the East Coast,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), primary sponsor of S. 1042, the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act. “The Jersey Shore’s tourism industry alone generates $38 billion/year and directly supports almost half a million jobs,” he said in an Apr. 22 […]