On Feb. 8, a group of local environmentalist traveled to Tallahassee to attend the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s public meeting concerning the recently released proposal for the 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program. The plan, as it is now, opens up most of the country’s offshore real estate to energy exploration, including Florida’s Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic waters, which are currently free from such activity.
Because BOEM did not afford attendees an opportunity to actually make verbal public comments, a collective of environmental organizations held a simultaneous ‘People’s Hearing’ in a room down the hallway from the BOEM hearing. Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson was among those who spoke at that event.