Thirty percent of the Nation's energy comes off the gulf coast.
I grew up at the beach and I was always involved in beach clean-ups and caring for my environment.
Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life," murmured Niko. "They bring new food for shore creatures, and take ships out to sea. They are the ocean's pulse, and our own heartbeat.
There is a lot of lip service paid in this Congress and downtown at the White House about family values and small business. Who better represents family values and small business than the fishermen and women on the Oregon and California coast.
I move in the university of the waves.
The oceans are more or less in disrepair. Long Beach really is making an effort to acknowledge this, and that's a great place to start. I'm trying to spread at least the knowledge that it's never too early to take care of our oceans and our environment.
Frankly, we should have an ARPA-O, an Advanced Research Projects Agency for oceans research, to match DARPA for defense and ARPA-E for energy. And we should have an Oceans and Coasts Fund to match the upland- and freshwater-directed Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The sea is certainly common to all.
As horrific as this impact has been on my constituents, it is only a small part of the overwhelming destruction covering 90,000 square miles of the Gulf Coast.
BP had a lease to drill. They did not have a lease to pollute the Gulf of Mexico. They did not have a lease to blow oil into the environment. They did not have a lease to disperse the oil and try to hide the body. They don't have a lease to clean up.
You don't have to live near the ocean for it to have an impact on you. And you don't have to live near the ocean for you to have an impact on it.
Then the BBC approached me in 2005 and asked me to be one of the presenters of the series 'Coast', which turned into a very long-running series.
Alabama has made great progress in proving that BP, Halliburton, and Transocean are liable for the devastating effects of the oil spill.
The government should promote community nurseries of mangrove species and other appropriate tree species chosen under the coastal bio-shield and agro-forestry programmes.
Are there are fireflies on the West Coast? I never saw any when I lived in California.
BP has finally acknowledged what the American people have been saying for weeks: It must take responsibility for its reckless conduct, clean up the Gulf and compensate the countless victims of the disaster it caused.
Our Great Lakes, harbors, ports, and rivers provide not only vital resources for us to live, but an entire maritime way of life for so many people. The least we can do is protect it, and the way of life it provides for so many.
Our lands and waters share incredible bounty and beauty. Trekking across forests and mountains, exploring beaches in search of shellfish, and fishing from clear waters are all part of our regional way of life and economy.
When BP was not moving fast enough on claims, we told BP to set aside $20 billion in a fund - managed by an independent third party - to help all those whose lives have been turned upside down by the spill.
I've always been fascinated by the Gold Coast. The homes themselves are spectacular, unlike anything you'll see other than in Newport, Bar Harbor or Palm Beach. It's a very special area that, because of local demographics, is not going to survive much longer.
I've always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
Hurricane Katrina exposed the harsh reality that we have been skating on thin ice when it comes to this country's energy concentrations on the Gulf Coast.
I am so proud to be partnering with Waterkeepers, who are the voice for the Gulf Coast's waters.
For the last 50 years, the federal government has taken out of the Gulf Coast $165 billion in taxes that came from oil and gas off of our coast that went to the federal Treasury, to rebuild all places in America except the place that it came from.
I've always been a big supporter of the Surfrider Foundation. I started my own foundation, Rob Machado Foundation, which focuses on environmental education for the little people of the world.
