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>> Hello, and thank you

for being with us.

I'm Jim Paymar with the

"Long Island Business Report."

The Trump administration

has a plan to open nearly

the entire United States

coastline 3 miles

or more from shore to oil

and gas exploration

and drilling.

If the plan moves forward,

Long Island's coast

and the Sound

could be severely imperiled.

The process of extracting,

shipping

and burning fossil fuels

will only expand our carbon

footprint, creating more global

warming and rising seas,

which will, of course,

also impact Long Island.

As part of our ongoing series of

reports,

"Peril & Promise: The Challenge

of Climate Change,"

we're taking a look at offshore

oil drilling and its potential

to cause dangerous changes

in our climate.

Joining me now to discuss

this issue is Shay O'Reilly,

organizing representative

at the Sierra Club,

and Brian Erwin,

chairman of the Long Island

State Park Commission.

Bryan and Shay, thank you

so much for being with us.

>> Thanks, Jim.

Thanks for having us.

>> The opening, the extraction

of fuel,

the placing

of platforms offshore,

the transport of oil

to refineries,

what does this all mean, Shay,

in terms of what

we would contribute

to the carbon footprint?

>> That's right.

So nobody knows how much oil

and gas reserves we have off

of our coast in Long Island.

That's important to underscore,

but the process of exploring

for it,

and if they do find that

there are oil and gas reserves,

the whole process of extraction

is accompanied

by very high carbon costs,

so you're not just looking at

combustion,

but you're looking at the cost

of building the platforms,

which are built down on

the Gulf Coast

and shipped up here potentially.

You're looking at the cost

of these oil tankers'

coming in, retrieving the oil

and then

bringing it off the refinery.

You're looking at the flaring

at the refinery, all of that.

>> Right.

>> What we do know right now

is that the existing oil

and gas reserves on this planet,

so that's excluding anything

they might find

off of Long Island,

are more than five times

the amount we can burn to safely

remain within 2 degrees Celsius

of climate change.

>> And you mentioned a moment

ago

that the New York

metropolitan area

as a city, as an urban area,

has more coastline than

any other city in the country.

Is that true?

>> That's right.

New York City has the most

coastline by mileage

of any city in the country,

so we're uniquely

vulnerable to rising seas.

In addition,

past historic geological effects

and the pumping of water from

the aquifer here on Long Island

mean that sea levels are rising

about 50 percent faster

on average here

than in the global mean.

>> Do we know how much sea rise,

Bryan, there is off the coast

of Long Island?

>> We don't know from our

perspective exactly, but, well,

we do see it anecdotally, right,

so we have

25 miles of beachfront

just for state parks alone,

15 of which is ocean-facing,

and so part of our challenge

is always to keep and maintain

our beaches for the public.

Just by way of example,

our state park system

on Long Island

is on par in terms of visitation

with a lot of the national

parks,

right, so even Jones Beach.

If Jones Beach was a national

park, it would be

the second-most-visited

national park

in the national park system,

so we get a lot of visitation.

>> Wow.

>> Part of our challenge

is maintaining that experience

for all of our park patrons,

and obviously

if we have significant erosion,

and we see this anecdotally from

our recent superstorms

that we've had over the last

few years

where we had Robert Moses Beach

and Ocean Parkway

in a lot of ways swept away,

and obviously if we're in

some regards

receding into the water,

it's going to make

that challenge even greater,

so it's something we're keeping

a close eye on.

>> And how do we combat this,

I mean,

if the federal government

has decided

that it's going to allow

offshore oil

drilling and extraction?

I know there are some

lawsuits, you know?

Our representatives,

both of the state level

and here in the county

are fighting this, Shay.

Can it be stopped?

>> It can be.

The main thing we see with this

administration

is that public outcry

is really important

for preventing the worst attacks

on our clean air and water,

including

our beaches on Long Island,

so we have held

major rallies around hearings

hosted by our great elected

officials here on Long Island

that have brought in hundreds

and hundreds of people

expressing their opposition

to offshore drilling,

and what we have been hearing

from the administration

is that they will take into

consideration the concerns

of the people who live here.

It's my opinion

that they're more interested

in drilling in the Gulf Coast

and off of Alaska, anyhow,

but any attacks on our waters

and on our oceans

are really important

to counter right away,

so there's a lot of opportunity

to make your voice heard.

You can show up to a rally.

You can write to the Secretary

of the Interior, Ryan Zinke,

and you can also make sure that

our elected officials continue

to stand up for our coastline.

>> Bryan, what are you hearing

from our county executives,

Laura Curran from Nassau

and Steve Bellone

in Suffolk County

or from Andrew Cuomo's office

in Albany, for example?

Is there a consistent

confrontation

to hold back on oil

drilling and extraction

from the New York coastline?

>> Well, it's alarming

for all of us,

so we've gotten

some great support from Albany

and in particular

Governor Cuomo, including

our stakeholders in the state

assembly and the state Senate,

but what our commission did in

particular,

we wanted to really...

To Shay's point, we really

wanted to heighten awareness

of the impact that offshore

drilling would have,

hydrocarbon drilling would have,

on the environmental

impact of the island as well.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> So we adopted a resolution

a few months ago

expressing

our sense of a commission

that we were very much opposed

to offshore

drilling from an environmental

perspective as well

as an economic perspective.

State parks alone generate

$1.2 billion of economic

activity here on Long Island.

>> Wow.

>> That translates into about

$620 million of labor income,

of wages for 16,500 workers.

That's a significant economic

impact just for state parks.

I'm not counting county parks,

town parks that are also

oceanfront and the tourist

economy as a whole.

You know, if one is of

a certain age,

they may remember on the south

shore

Heckscher, for example,

tar balls that would wash up

onto shore, you know?

If you were a certain age,

you remember them sticking

to your leg and maybe

throwing them at your buddy,

which was funny then,

not so funny now

when you think about it,

and no one wants to go back

to those days where one thinks

about beachfront Long Island

and thinks about

an environmental catastrophe

or disaster.

Again, I'm of the age where

medical waste was washing up.

We don't want to go back...

>> Right.

Right.

>> ...to those days at all,

and it's not just

from our cultural and from

our recreational standpoint,

but there is a significant

economic impact that we

have to be aware of as well.

>> And it's frightening

when you think of what happened

in Louisiana and the Gulf Coast

with theDeepwater Horizon

explosion

and the massive amounts of oil

that were spilled.

I mean, it's underneath

the sand,

theExxon Valdez,

which happened decades ago,

the oil is still underneath

the rocks, and...

>> Right.

>> ...it just never goes away.

>> Right.

>> So much of the way

that we talk about

"cleaning up" after an oil spill

is really just theater.

We don't actually know how

to effectively get these

hydrocarbons

out of the environment

in a long-term, chronic way,

so that's a real issue for us,

and from an economic

perspective, too,

Long Island is already looking

at offshore energy development,

but we're looking at

offshore wind, which is a clean

and renewable source of energy

that doesn't cause

the same kinds of climate

and environmental impact

as offshore oil drilling does.

>> Right.

>> That could be a billions

and billions

of dollar-a-year industry

by the end of the next decade,

and that would come into

conflict with zoning these areas

for oil and gas leasing.

>> And look.

I want to key off

that a little bit, Shay,

if you don't mind, you know,

one thing our commission

looked into in terms

of the economic impact

of offshore drilling...

If one made an argument that,

"You know what?

What I really care about

is a cheaper commute

so if my gas prices were

a little bit lower, then maybe

I'm okay with this," right?

We wanted to approach it

from that perspective,

but the truth is,

the United States is now a net

exporter of hydrocarbons,

so it just did not make sense

to any of us, and by the way,

some of us were appointed

by a Democratic governor.

Some of us were appointed

by Republican governors.

Unanimously, it made zero sense

for us

to jeopardize our environment,

our economy, our cultural way

of life

to ship oil to Harbin,

Beijing and Guangzhou.

It just didn't make any sense

to us at all,

so it was a pretty easy call

for us to make.

>> Who is supporting

this besides

the fossil fuel industry

and the Trump administration?

Do you hear any support

coming from Long Island?

>> Well, look at...

I think one nice thing,

and Shay can write the book

on this, is Long Island,

generally speaking, is unified

on supporting the environment.

That's very exciting.

It's one thing I'm proud

of about being from here,

but those stakeholders

you mentioned,

the Trump administration

and the oil and gas industry

are pretty significant

proponents, and look.

We're nervous,

and we're alarmed,

not that we think that these

things are going up tomorrow,

but if we don't plant our flag

in the ground and articulate

our views,

look, this could come up

at some point,

and these are pretty powerful

stakeholders

that are proposing this.

>> If there was a spill,

a major spill,

I mean, is there any way

to anticipate

the damage and destruction

to the shoreline of Long Island

and what that would mean

and how that would

diminish us as a community

and what it would mean to jobs

and the economy in general?

>> Almost incalculable,

I would argue.

If you want to look at a rough

analog,

and this is very rough,

look what happened

after Superstorm Sandy

and the cost that took

into rebuilding

the south shore of the island,

the cost that took in terms

of people's home insurance.

Right now, imagine if you had

a manmade

environmental disaster

on the par of Superstorm Sandy

but also it affects

the view of the island

as a place

that is not safe to visit,

not safe to swim in the water.

Whereas, you know,

once the summer rolled around

after Superstorm Sandy,

we were open for business,

and we were able to generate

crowds, which is very exciting

and credit to the governor

for getting things rolling

that quickly,

but I don't know

how you repair reputation,

so if the reputation is it's not

safe to go into the water...

tar balls, right?

I don't know how you calculate

that.

>> And what do you...

How do you calculate

the economic impact of people

deciding that the reason

that they live on Long Island,

the great coastline,

the green spaces

that are available here,

are no longer there for them?

How do you calculate the impact

of people deciding to move and

deciding to leave Long Island

because the reasons that they

stayed here are not the reasons

that are there anymore?

>> Right, and wildlife,

marine life,

I mean, the oyster beds

that we're trying to bring back,

the bird life...

>> Right.

>> We've been seeing whales

and porpoises and dolphins

back in the region, so...

>> We have world-class

surf casting off of Montauk

at our state park...

>> Right.

>> ...that we're very proud of.

It attracts international

visitation,

not just local visitation.

I don't think anyone knows

what would happen to the blues

when you had

an oil spill of that magnitude.

>> Uh-huh.

>> It's chilling,

so it's something that we want

to make sure that we're well

ahead of the curve on.

>> The blues?

The blues?

>> Bluefish.

>> Oh, the bluefish!

>> Yeah.

>> And when it comes

to wildlife,

I think it's important also

to underscore

that there will be harm

to wildlife merely by looking

for oil and gas reserves.

What they do is they go out

with a sound gun,

and they fire it at the ocean

floor

to identify potential resources,

and those sound guns

are very powerful,

and they can stun or even kill

marine life like whales,

porpoises,

turtles, even schools of fish.

>> And they can

deafen them, right...

>> Exactly.

>> ...so that they...

and that's the way that they

communicate,

and that's the way that they

migrate,

and that's the way that they

find food and find mates.

>> That's right.

>> So that's another danger

that we confront.

What I don't understand,

and I'm not seeing any kind

of blueprints or mapping,

how many oil...

Let's just say the oil companies

had their way,

and they could come in here

carte blanche and start

putting these in the ground,

and we don't know how much oil

they can extract or gas

they can extract

from our shorelines,

but do we have any idea

how many platforms conceivably

could be built around

the New York metropolitan area

that would impact our seas?

>> I'm not entirely certain

of the answer of that question,

but I do know that where

the previous studies, which are

all decades old at this point,

so this is older technology...

>> Right.

>> ...have found potential

for gas reserves is around

the Hudson Canyon area,

which is an especially

ecologically sensitive area.

So I think even one platform

there would cause

kind of untoward damage

to that ecosystem.

>> And one thing we do know

from history,

it's never one platform, right?

If there...

>> If they find it

in one place...

>> Right.

>> If there's a play, right,

in the parlance of the industry,

if there's a play,

it's not just going to be

one platform.

It's going to be, you know,

kind of a gold rush,

an oil rush of platforms,

and that's going to proliferate

the risk that we're going

to have to be mindful of.

>> You know, there's one state

that is exempted

from offshore oil drilling.

We all know which state that is,

I guess, Florida,

where the Trump estate,

the Mar-a-Lago, sits,

and they were able to get

that exemption right away.

What can New Yorkers

and Long Islanders

do to fight back?

And Donald Trump

is a New Yorker.

I mean, you would figure

he would give some consideration

to his own backyard.

>> Right.

>> Do you see the fight

being taken up

so that we can stop this

before it begins?

>> I do, and I see it from

a bipartisan group of people,

which is really exciting.

I think like Bryan said earlier,

we have opposition from both

sides of the aisle on this one.

Republicans and Democrats

from Long Island

and from New York

are opposed to it.

What we do know is that the

hearings

that the Bureau of Ocean Energy

Management

held in our state were attended

by people who universally

spoke against this plan,

so that's a really good

first step,

but there is

still the opportunity to comment

to the Bureau

of Ocean Energy Management.

There is still the opportunity

to go online

to find the agency website

and to write to the secretary

and say, "Please remove

these areas from consideration,"

and to support our elected

officials in doing exactly that.

>> Right.

>> Governor Cuomo is suing over

this plan

if it moves forward...

Showing your county legislator,

showing your state legislator,

showing our governor

that we stand behind them

as they pursue blocking this

dangerous plan is important.

>> I think the only thing

I would add,

and Shay is absolutely right.

The only thing I would add is

just for Long Islanders

to keep their eyes open, and...

>> Yes.

>> ...rhetoric is not enough,

right?

Coming from a background

in politics, it's easy to say,

"I'm going to do this,"

and then vote another way,

so really keep an eye

on the voting records

of some of these elected as well

to make sure that they are

backing up their rhetoric.

>> But help me understand.

I mean, obviously this comes

from the president

of the United States,

who then appoints the nominee

for the Interior Department,

Ryan Zinke, from Montana,

who then decides,

I guess with the blessing

of the president,

that offshore oil drilling

will be allowed

all across this country,

okay, so what is...

and you've been in politics,

and you were in the Obama

White House for 4 years.

Do you have any idea

what the process is now?

Now that this has been approved,

how does it move forward,

and what kind of time horizon

are we talking about

if they were actually going to

put,

you know, a drill in the ground?

>> Right.

I wasn't in the Interior

Department, so I...

>> No.

I know that.

>> I can't comment on that

regulatory process.

I do know, though,

if the White House...

and this is an obvious

statement.

If the president

of the United States

and the White House

puts its full weight and

credibility behind an action.

That is, "We would like to drill

offshore anywhere and everywhere

we can except Florida,"

that is something

that can happen fairly quickly,

and that's what is so alarming

to all of us,

Republicans,

Democrats on the island.

>> When you say quickly, I mean,

are we talking about 6 months?

Are we talking about a year?

Are we talking about 2020?

I mean, I don't know.

>> Quick enough that

if we're not vigilant,

that one day we'll wake up,

and we'll have

offshore platforms drilling for

hydrocarbons in our backyard,

and that's kind of

what we have to keep our eye on.

>> Shay, do you know?

>> I do.

The first lease area off of

New York is going to be up

for auction in 2021.

>> 2021?

>> So we have a couple of years

to mobilize

to take it off of the table

and to really make sure that

the secretary of the Interior

changes his mind about this,

but 2021 is kind of day zero for

us in terms of

when they would start

auctioning off that area.

>> Okay, and educate me here.

>> Yes?

>> So 2021... We have

a presidential election in 2020.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Could it be stopped if there

was a different president?

I mean, these executive orders

that we've seen rolled

back from the Obama era...

I mean, the president has been

signing these left and right.

Could a new president just say,

"Forget it.

No more offshore oil drilling.

It's done with"?

Could that happen?

>> Yes, they definitely could,

and we're actually seeing

with this plan from Ryan Zinke

a reversal of previous

administration policy,

so the Obama administration,

after the BP oil disaster,

took areas of the eastern

Gulf of Mexico and removed them

from consideration

for further drilling,

so what Zinke did

is he reversed that and in fact

opened all of our coastlines

for oil and gas exploration

and drilling.

Similarly, a new administration

in 2020

could come in and say,

"We're going to revisit

how we are using

our offshore resources,

and we are actually going to

cancel plans

to have any further auctions

on oil and gas leasing.

>> Getting back to a question I

asked at the very beginning,

do we have any sense,

any idea of how much pollution

is created

by building

these platforms in our seas,

shipping this oil to refineries,

flaring it off, then bringing it

to distribution centers,

gas stations, power plants,

et cetera?

Do we have any idea how much

pollution is caused by that,

how much greenhouse gases

are emitted into our atmosphere?

>> It's hard to get

a play-by-play for which step

has which kind of tons

of hydrocarbons emitted.

>> Right.

>> But what we can say

is that development

of infrastructure

to extract oil and gas

and to burn it locks us in

to continuing to rely

on that for our energy,

so any development

of infrastructure...

It typically has a lifetime...

Different pieces have

lifetimes...a decade, two

decades,

and the more we develop it,

the more we are stuck

in that rut,

and if you're trying to change

course,

you can't keep putting one foot

in front of the other

in the same direction

you were going.

You have to actually start

turning around

and going the other way.

So of concern to me and of

concern to the Sierra Club

is the fact that

this heightens our reliance

on dirty fossil fuels

and our economy's reliance on it

for export and things like that

rather than kicking it right

when we need to be the most.

>> Bryan?

>> And again,

it's not just our economy

but because

we're a net exporter,

it's the global economy.

>> Right.

>> So we're extracting here

offshore

from the island and then

sending it to East Asia,

which again, one has to wrap

their mind around that.

>> Doesn't...

>> Doesn't even make sense.

>> Doesn't make a lot

of sense to me.

>> They also don't track...

A lot of our international

agreements

don't track some of the costs,

the emissions, that happen

in international waters,

so the emissions produced

by these barges that would

take this oil over to China,

those actually aren't part

of the accounting being done

by entities

like the United Nations because

it's international waters.

>> Now what about wind energy,

and does that cause

a lot of pollution as well?

Because there are some plans

that are in effect right now

to put very large

wind facilities,

renewable resources.

Bryan, what do we know

about that?

>> We know that there are a lot

of plans,

and, you know, we're going to

let that move through

the appropriate state

and local authorities,

but certainly what we focused on

is the environmental impact,

and we noted in our resolution

that, you know,

wind is something and renewable

energies is something

that is very attractive,

but again we'll let the right

authorities kind of decide

on that in the right time,

but what we did want to say

was hydrocarbons offshore

is something

that we thought just made zero

sense for Long Island.

>> Mm-hmm, okay, and Shay?

>> Manufacturing, any kind of

industrial manufacturing,

has some environmental costs,

but in this case,

the costs are highly outweighed

by the benefits,

so what we see is that once you

get these turbines in the water,

they actually become

artificial reefs for fish.

There are some very, very happy

recreational

fishermen up in Block Island,

Rhode Island,

and they, of course,

also lessen our reliance

on dirty fossil fuels,

which cause

all kinds of problems.

We know that fossil fuel plants,

coal plants,

stuff like that actually kill

on average many more birds

per kilowatt

than wind turbines do,

and so we know that the easiest

way

to protect our natural resources

is to as quickly as possible

transition to renewable energy

in a way that's responsible

and that takes into account

the needs of communities,

human and nonhuman.

>> Now I probably...

I'm going out on a limb here,

but I would imagine that

there's probably not a state

in the country

that welcomes offshore oil

drilling and extraction and all

of the pollution that it causes.

I used to live in California,

and you know there was

a tremendously

horrible oil spill

off the coast of Santa Barbara.

I'm just wondering what states

could do

to come together collectively.

For example, New York,

New Jersey, Connecticut,

Massachusetts,

Maine, could we come together

as a region to fight

offshore oil drilling?

>> I mean, it's our system.

It's our federalist system,

right, and I think that's

what's pretty exciting about

what we're doing locally here,

but I think it could be

replicated across the country,

that if there is

enough activists come together,

enough local elected officials

come together and say, you know,

"This doesn't make sense

to jeopardize our coastline,"

and I can't speak for

the Gulf Coast or California.

I can speak for us.

It just didn't make sense

to jeopardize our coastline

and that $1.2 billion

of economic activity

just for state parks

on Long Island to ship some

oil and natural gas to China.

It just didn't make any sense

to us, right?

>> But you would think that,

I mean, the Jersey shore,

I mean, is the same

as the Long Island shore,

that they're totally dependent

on that for recreation,

and it brings millions

and millions

of dollars into the economy.

Connecticut, you know,

Massachusetts, Maine...

I mean, could we

collectively come together

somehow to push

back on the Trump administration

and Ryan Zinke?

>> I'm really interested

in this topic.

I have some ideas

for how that might play out,

but this is pure

speculation on my part, so...

>> Okay, speculate.

>> Let me be clear about that.

>> Speculate.

>> I'll speculate.

So actually on the West Coast

what we're seeing is Washington,

Oregon and California

joining together

to stop the transport

of some of the dirtiest

fossil fuel products

across their states.

It's called a kind of green wall

strategy.

What I'm curious about is that

any industry,

like you've mentioned, oil

and oil drilling has a lot

of different components to it.

It has a port component.

It has all of these different

manufacturing components,

the travel

and the infrastructure involved.

Many of those make use of

facilities

or would make use of facilities

that are owned by states.

Think about the Port Authority

of New Jersey and New York

and the kind of ports

that are available there.

You would need to dock your

barges,

your equipment for building

these platforms, somewhere.

What would it look like

if all of the states that

were opposed to this plan

came together and said,

"Not only are we suing the

federal government over this,

but we are going to pass some

joint resolutions

that no plan to drill

for oil off of our coast

can use our infrastructure.

If we are, as a state,

opposed to this,

we will not aid it in any way"?

>> So...

>> So maybe that's possible.

>> And this goes, what,

for pipelines as well?

I mean, you can prohibit

pipelines from being built

through your state, correct?

>> That's...

To a certain extent, yes.

>> To a certain extent?

>> The states do have some

permitting authority over that.

Some of it does reside

with the federal government,

but I do believe that

some of our state legislators

are looking into legislation

that would block pipelines

from coming from offshore oil

and gas drilling in New York

into the state-owned areas.

>> So, Bryan, getting back to...

A story

that we started at the beginning

was the impact of Long Island,

the people who live here,

our economy, the fisheries...

The reason that we are here

is the water.

The reason that tourists come

here

is because of the water

and the shorelines, you know?

What are your thoughts

about offshore oil

drilling going forward?

>> Yeah, well, look.

I'll answer that by

just telling a story that...

I had to get some

perspective because, you know,

I grew up in Riverhead,

and I took it totally

for granted

that I was able to...

I was in reach of

three different bodies of water.

One I could walk to.

One I could ride my bike to.

The other, the ocean,

once I got my license,

was 20 minutes away.

Who gets that?

Remember when I first

got my job,

there were a lot of folks

from the Midwest

in my first job out of college.

They had never seen the ocean.

To them, it was a special trip

to go see the ocean.

To me, it was called

Tuesday in the summer, right,

and like all of us.

>> Right.

>> And when you think about

just going to the parks,

when you think about really our

recreation and cultural history

in a lot of ways,

I don't mean to exaggerate,

are tied to the state parks.

You know,

Bob Moses built the state parks,

connected it with the parkways,

for better or for worse,

but I think a lot of folks

realize

that the way Long Island

has developed was around

in a lot of ways the state park

and how the parkways connect,

and major ways of conveyance

are around these parks

and how a lot of people

spend their free time.

Everybody has a Jones Beach

story on Long Island, right?

>> Right. Right.

>> Everybody has their favorite

state park.

Maybe they don't realize

how connected they are.

And it just...

It would upset me that something

that's a cultural linchpin

for Long Island,

if we jeopardize that...Again,

I keep coming back to this.

We jeopardize those 16,500 jobs,

$600 million plus of wages,

if we jeopardize that to ship

some oil to East Asia,

I think it's

a calamitous mistake

that we would potentially make,

which is why our commission with

the backing of Governor Cuomo

decided we're going to make it

unanimous that we're going to,

in a bipartisan way, say,

"This is wrong for Long Island.

This doesn't make any sense,

and we need to think

about a better way."

>> Okay.

Well, I told you this would be

a fast half hour,

and it was, and I thank you

both for being here,

and that wraps up

our conversation

on the impact of climate change

on Long Island.

To learn more about "Peril and

Promise,"

visit perilandpromise.org,

and for more on the "Long Island

Business Report,"

log on to our website.

You can also find us on Facebook

and join the conversation

on Twitter.

I'm Jim Paymar.

Thank you for joining us

for this edition of the

"Long Island Business Report,"

and we'll see you next time.